The Love Killings (25 page)

CHAPTER 58

Dr. Westbrook believes in you.

He hadn’t seen the FBI profiler since the Strattons’ funeral at old St. David’s Church. Curiously, Dr. Westbrook wasn’t on stage with
the team
during the press conference. As Matt searched his memory, he didn’t remember seeing the profiler when the cameras cut to members of the task force sitting in the audience as well. It had been Dr. Westbrook who had offered an alternate profile on the mass killer and confirmed Matt’s earliest theories. When Rogers and Doyle scowled at Matt during the funeral service, he could still see the expression on Dr. Westbrook’s face. The profiler no longer appeared to have been judging him. Instead, Matt had detected an even, measured gaze. The look of genuine curiosity.

Could Westbrook have known what Doyle and Brown were up to, and not approved? Had Westbrook been reciting the party line early on when he’d given Matt such a hard time?

The answer appeared to be a resounding
yes
.

Matt rode in the passenger seat of an unmarked black Chevy Suburban from the Federal Detention Center on Seventh Street to the Marriott Downtown at Twelfth and Filbert Streets. It was a high-speed ride by the US marshal in the business suit. Word of Matt’s release had somehow been leaked to the media, and all those cameras had been waiting for them before they could exit the building. Apparently, Doyle had proffered his theory that the homicide detective from Hollywood whom Matt had shot dead might not have been guilty of anything. Like a growing number of journalists working the political beat these days, no one bothered to check the record, and the questions came in the form of vindictive and self-righteous shrieks.

Is it true that you let Dr. Baylor go because he’s your uncle? Did you really help the serial killer escape? You shot an LAPD homicide detective multiple times and let another burn to death in a house fire. Were they getting too close? Is that why you killed these people? Were you secretly working for Dr. Baylor?

Followed by the blow of blows.

Why do you hate women? Are you a serial killer, too?

Matt grabbed hold of the seat as the US marshal swerved between cars with his foot on the floor. As Matt watched him roar up the street, he couldn’t help noticing the intensity of his eyes and the half smile that seemed to be permanently seared on his face. The man who wouldn’t introduce himself or give his name lived in a state of perpetual amusement.

He swung around the corner, then pulled in front of the hotel lobby, the tires screeching as he came to a hard stop. The man turned and shot Matt a look.

“This is as far as I go, Jones. You’re on your own now. No one followed us. You know Mr. Day’s suite number?”

Matt nodded. “I’ve got it, thanks.”

“And your attorney gave you a room key?”

Matt nodded again.

“Then you’re all set, Jones.” The man passed over a large manila envelope. “Your piece,” he said. “Everything you brought with you was packed up and moved from the apartment on Pine Street. You should find everything in your room two floors below Day’s. I guess detectives get rooms and celebrities take the suites. I’ve gotta go. I’m late.”

Matt swung the passenger door open and got out. It had started to snow, and he watched the US marshal in the business suit with no name pull the Chevy Suburban into the street and disappear in the tunnel that cuts through the Reading Terminal Market.

He opened the manila envelope and gazed inside at his .45 and holster. Then he turned to the hotel, still in shock that he was free.

The building was massive, its footprint the size of the entire block, with a walk-in entrance on Market Street as well. Matt entered the lobby and rode the elevator up to the nineteenth floor. Ryan Day’s suite was down the hall on the right. He tapped on the door and, while he waited, removed his pistol from the envelope and slid it into his holster.

“Who’s there?” the reporter said through the door.

“It’s me, Day. It’s Jones.”

He heard the locks release, and then the door snapped open. Matt was so grateful to Day for hiring Teddy Mack, so surprised by his sudden release, that all he wanted to do was shake the reporter’s hand. But when he got a look at Ryan Day’s face, when he cut through the stitches and the bruises still tattooing his skin, he could tell that the man was terrified.

“What is it, Day? What’s wrong?”

The gossip reporter checked the hallway, then ushered Matt inside, slammed the door shut, and threw the locks.

“A package was delivered to me here at the hotel this morning. Something so horrible I don’t know what to do, Jones. I’m in trouble. I’m at my wit’s end.”

Matt felt a chill ripple up his spine. “What is it?” he said quickly. “Show me.”

Day nodded, but was unable to stop shaking. Matt looked around and spotted an envelope beside the reporter’s laptop on the table in the living room. Day turned and hurried over to the table.

“Take a seat,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “It’s video. The killer sent me a disc, Jones.”

Matt grabbed a seat and watched Day click a media window open and hit Play.

“Did you touch the disc?” he said.

“Only the edges, Jones. I’m scared shitless, not scared stupid.”

Day got up and switched off the lights, then returned to his seat as the video began playing. Within a second or two, Matt felt his chest tighten and his soul lock up.

He heard the screams. He saw the terror on their faces.

The killer had recorded the night he’d murdered the Strattons. He must have been wearing spy glasses, because the horrific images were shot from the killer’s point of view. Every move he made, every shot he fired, every moment, including the boy having intercourse with his mother—every single detail of the night was here in living color. But even worse, cut against these images from hell on earth was the sound of the killer’s voice. He was goading his victims into submission. Shooting them one by one in order to force them to obey his commands. And he was laughing at them. Whenever one of his victims would give in, whenever one of them was shot, the horrid moment was accompanied by an insane giggle.

Matt felt his blood pressure hit the ceiling and tried to calm down.

It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t heard any gunshots. He could see the killer shooting his victims, he could see the wound, but the pistol wasn’t making any sound. He remembered his initial theory that the Strattons had been murdered on the landing in order to insulate the sound of the gun shots. That may still have been true about the loud shrieks his victims were making—their pleas and cries for mercy—but the pistol was equipped with a sound suppressor. He could see a piece of it moving in and out of the shot at the bottom of the frame. Something big and bright blue that seemed too outlandish to identify.

Matt shook his head as he watched Jim Stratton, MD, take the final bullet. The killer didn’t wait around to watch the man bleed out. He fired the gun, laughed as his victim collapsed against the wall and grabbed his daughters’ hands. After a few minutes, the killer wiped the blood away from Stratton’s chest and taped over the wound. And then the final outrage. The blow of blows. The camera shot began to jitter for several moments, and Matt realized that it was the killer scooping the blood off the floor with his hands and spraying the walls while jumping up and down in a psychotic glee. He could hear the beast cackling in the background.

The screen went black, along with Matt’s spirit and being—his core burned out. No words could describe what he’d just witnessed. Time would run out before he could ever forget what he’d seen and experienced.

“It’s not over yet,” Day said in a shaky voice. “Keep your eyes on the screen.”

Ten seconds passed before another image faded up.

It was a naked young woman. A teenager with blond hair, lying on a bed and having sex with a man. The shot was from the man’s point of view—the killer’s point of view—the digital video camera mounted on a pair of spy glasses again. The image included her entire body from midthigh to her face resting on a pillow. She appeared to be enjoying herself. She was sweating and moaning and gazing right into the lens. She looked wasted, and Matt guessed from the intensity of her perspiration that she might be using ecstasy.

It was a spooky shot. In some ways as haunting and grotesque as the recording of the mass killing. A shot of another kind of victim, a girl in over her head.

But that wasn’t what stood out here. Not the feelings of sadness, or even despair.

Matt looked at the girl’s swollen breasts and then her face just to make sure. He took a deep breath and exhaled.

It was her, he was sure of it. He recognized her and remembered seeing her naked body. He remembered seeing her on the man’s cell phone at the hotel bar the other night.

The man with the wool cap pulled over his blond cornrows.

But even better, that feeling of being awestruck hit him in the belly again. That feeling that the case was about to make another huge step forward.

He pulled Day’s laptop closer, his eyes glued to the video image. After a few seconds, he spotted it on the wall. The mirror on the wall above the bedside table. A man’s reflection. The killer’s reflection. The man with blond cornrows, wearing a pair of eyeglasses.

CHAPTER 59

Matt wasn’t surprised that his access card to the federal building’s underground garage still worked. He was driving the car Carlo Genovese had lent him, a Honda four-door sedan that melted into the flow of traffic and no one seemed to notice. Pulling down the ramp and first aisle, he noted Wes Rogers’s car and parked in the first empty space that wasn’t marked.

His cell phone was vibrating. When he checked the face, he could see his supervisor’s name blinking on the screen and took the call, Lieutenant Howard McKensie.

“What the hell is going on, Jones?”

“Everything’s gonna work out, Lieutenant. Everything’s good.”

“Everything’s good?” he said in a voice so loud Matt jerked the phone away from his ear. “Are you out of your mind? A federal prosecutor just called the LAPD incompetent. You want to tell the chief how everything’s good? You want to do a conference call?”

Matt checked his watch. While he understood everything that McKensie was saying and thought his lieutenant had every right to say it, he didn’t have time to explain what was going on. It was already past five, and Matt wanted to head off Rogers somewhere between the elevators and his car. He checked the ceiling for security cameras, then lowered his gaze to the concrete columns spaced every twenty feet or so.

“Are you there, Jones? Are you fucking there?”

“It’s going to work out, Lieutenant. We’re close and I’m back.”

“You’re back?”

He saw Rogers step out of the elevator. He got out of the car with his briefcase strapped to his shoulder and moved in behind a column. “The monsters are gone, Lieutenant. You’ll have to trust me on this. And I’ve gotta go.”

Matt switched off the phone, drew his .45, and chambered a round. Moving to the side, he watched the special agent approaching his car. The man was sending a text message—a natural victim completely oblivious to his surroundings. When Matt heard Rogers’s car chirp and saw the lights flash, he waited a beat for the special agent to turn his back and open the car door.

That’s when Matt touched the back of Roger’s neck with the muzzle of his gun.

The special agent froze, and the cell phone dropped out of his hand.

“Let me guess,” Rogers said quietly. “Actually, it’s more than a guess. I can see your reflection in the fucking window, Jones. What in the world do you think you’re doing?”

“We need to talk.”

Rogers lowered his gaze and shook his head as if saying anything more would be pointless.

“We’re going up to your office, Rogers.”

“We’re what?”

“Going up to your office.”

The special agent shrugged and shook his head again. “What are you doing, Jones? You get the break of a lifetime, and now you’re fucking up again. It must be in your nature. You can’t help being a fuckup. It’s your way.”

“This isn’t a negotiation, Rogers. I need five more minutes of your life. Just five minutes, and then I’m gone.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s a mass killer, and he’s still out there. I’m gonna put the gun away. You’re gonna be good, and you’re gonna give me five minutes. Those five minutes will end up saving your life, Rogers.”

Rogers turned and gave Matt a hard look. “Save my life?”

Matt met his gaze and nodded. “Five minutes and I’m history. I promise. We’ll look at a DVD, and you’ll tell me what you think. And then I’m gone. Forever gone.”

The severity of expression in the special agent’s eyes eased some. “Okay, Jones. Put the gun away and let’s go upstairs. I’ve got five minutes to spend on a chance.”

Matt trusted Rogers because he thought he had to. But also because Ryan Day had made a copy of the DVD, and either way, the truth would eventually come to light.

They rode the elevator up to the eighth floor, and as they walked down the hall to Rogers’s office, all eyes were on Matt. No one said anything, just a lot of head scratching and long looks, cut with a few groans. Matt ignored it, watching Rogers switch on the lights and following him into the office.

The computer remained on, but sleeping. Matt slipped on a pair of vinyl gloves and reached into his briefcase for the DVD. He was about to remove the disc from the paper sleeve when a man wearing a tie stepped into the doorway. Matt assumed that he was an agent but had never seen him before. He noted the semiautomatic strapped to his shoulder, his gelled hair combed straight back, the suspicion showing on his face.

The man gave Matt a look, appeared to notice the .45 beneath his jacket, then turned to Rogers.

“Everything okay?” he said in a husky voice.

Rogers nodded. “Everything’s cool.”

The man looked back at Matt, sized him up, and shook his head. “I don’t know how you pulled it off, Jones. But I’ve gotta say, the world’s a pretty fucked-up place when the jail door opens and an asshole like you walks out.”

Matt remained expressionless. “Do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Close the door.”

The agent exchanged looks with Rogers and eventually walked away. Matt crossed the room and closed the door.

“Where’s Doyle?” Matt said.

“On a train to DC.”

“What about Kate Brown?”

“She went with him.”

A short moment passed. Matt thought about Brown, then let go of the anger and all the images that went with it. After a deep breath, he removed the disc from its paper sleeve and inserted it into Rogers’s desktop computer.

“You should probably sit down, Rogers.”

“I’ll decide what I do and when I do it, Jones. Play the DVD. Your five minutes is almost up.”

“Suit yourself.”

Matt grabbed the mouse and waited for the computer to recognize the disc. When the media player opened, he hit Play and tried to brace himself for what came next.

The screams. The shootings. The horror.

All those moving images.

After a minute or two, he turned and gazed at Rogers. The special agent was leaning on the credenza, the expression on his face broken. Matt found it extraordinarily difficult to look at the man. He could sense his pain and thought that he might be taking the hit personally.

Matt picked up the mouse and fast forwarded to the second media entry. When the image of the blond teenager having sex faded up, Matt pointed at the killer’s reflection in the mirror.

“That’s the killer, Rogers. That’s the man we’re supposed to be looking for. The one who made the front page of the
Daily News
.”

It hung there . . . like waves of radiation raining down on them from a red-hot sky. Rogers sank into his desk chair, his eyes blank. After a long moment, the special agent spoke in a deep and subdued voice.

“How many people have seen this?”

“A couple. This is the original. The killer sent it to a friend of mine. It needs to be logged in as evidence, checked for fingerprints, and examined by your tech unit.”

“Meaning that there are copies?”

Matt nodded without saying anything.

Rogers shook his head and exhaled. “On a bad day, the bureau is everything you think it is, Jones. On a good day, we can still hit it out of the park. This is a bad day. A real bad day.”

“I just want to know if we’re on the same page, sir.”

Rogers met his gaze. “Westbrook was right about you. I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner. If anyone else gets hurt, it’ll be on me and I’ll walk with it to my grave.”

Matt didn’t need to repeat the question. They were reading the same book and turned to the same page. He opened his briefcase and fished out the Strattons’ family portrait still sealed in the plastic freezer bag.

“The killer masturbated on Tammy’s and Kaylee’s underwear the night he took this picture. The image was taken at the funeral home, and everyone in it is dead. Their bodies will need to be exhumed as soon as possible.”

Rogers appeared to be flabbergasted, even dazed. He leaned closer to examine the photo. After a few seconds, he seemed to get it, then shook his head again and let out a sigh. Several moments passed, the silence electric. When the special agent finally spoke, his voice was just above a whisper.

“I need you to do me a favor, Jones.”

“How can I help?”

“I want you to keep this to yourself and lie low for a couple of days. I understand how difficult that will be for you, but I need to do certain things my way. Can you do that for me?”

Matt nodded.

“Who’s your friend?” Rogers went on. “Who has a copy of this disc?”

“I’d rather not say, sir.”

Rogers took the hit and let it go. “I deserved that. Let me ask you this. Can the person be trusted to keep it under wraps for a while?”

“It’s not really in his nature, but in this case, yes. He’s aware of what’s at stake and has already agreed.”

Rogers picked up the phone and entered three numbers on his key pad. After listening for a moment, he spoke into the handset.

“Get in here, Lee.”

Rogers hung up. A few moments later the door opened and the man with the tie, the gun, and the gelled haired walked back in.

Rogers got up from his desk chair. “Lee, you need to tell Jones that you’re sorry for the things you just said to him. He’s a better detective than you are. He just broke open the case. If you don’t apologize, then leave your badge at the front desk and get out.”