The Psalmist (11 page)

 

Chapter 17

U
NLIKE
T
IDEWATER'S
M
AIN
Street, this one had several boarded-­up storefronts. Only an attorney's office seemed to be open today in the block where the wax museum had been.

Sheets of plywood covered the front windows of the museum. Gale twisted a key in a padlock and pushed the plywood-­covered door. The museum's gift shop in front was mostly intact, though the walls were soot-­blackened. The room still reeked of burnt wood and plaster.

Gale clicked on his flashlight, pointing the beam at the entrance arch to the museum, then led her in, swinging the light back and forth over the floor. The museum had been a single large room, he said, showing her with the light beam what was left of it. The flashlight picked out a figure she recognized as Superman, his legs now foreshortened, most of his face and arms gone.

“Started the fire at the back of the museum in here.” Gale swished the light beam against another doorway to a small rear office. “Probably using paper and plastic and stuffing from the sofa cushions.”

“So he carried her in through the back door?”

“Back door, that's right. Probably parked right behind the door. Broke in. Set up the fire. Then carried the lady in. Set her body on fire. Left the door open when he left.”

“Single point of ignition, then?”

“No, ma'am.” He pointed the light among the various-­sized stubs of the wax figures. “Arson report says that they believe there were four separate points of ignition.”

The detective's demeanor had changed, Hunter noticed, as soon as they'd entered the museum. His voice had become more halting; his pauses seemed reflective. Scenes of unexplained killings had always felt a little haunted to her, inhabited still by the mystery of what had happened and by the presence of the victim. Hunter could tell this crime still affected him deeply.

As they stopped again in the center of the museum, she felt a gathering sense of recognition—­the way the killer had staged the scene to create a dramatic impression.

Hunter smelled the wet leather of Gale's jacket as he moved closer to her, his sleeve touching hers.

“Were there security cameras?” she asked, stepping away.

“Disabled.” He aimed the light toward the storage area. “Motion activated. We figure he came in through the office and deactivated them there.”

“So he would have had to know the setup.”

“That'd be a reasonable assumption.”

“Where was the victim, exactly?”

He pointed the beam at a spot near the center of the room. “Seated about here. One of the points of origin.” He moved closer, so he was directly above the spot where the victim had been found. “Accelerants poured on her body, evidently.” He drew a dash of light on the floor. “She was between the figures of Wonder Woman.” He moved the beam several feet to the left. “And Batman. Both of which burned down to almost nothing, as you can see.”

Hunter watched, imagining the man setting her there, pouring the accelerant, then igniting it with a cigarette lighter. She had seen sloppy arsons over the years; this one wasn't sloppy. It was a studied, carefully planned crime. The perpetrator knew how it would burn. He had left the back door open, knowing how the oxygen would impact the fire; that the cold air would fan the flames but then would also help extinguish them, leaving the front of the building intact.

Detective Gale clicked off his light and moved back toward the gift shop. Hunter stood in the darkness for a while, taking it in.
The perpetrator's comfortable working at night. In darkness.

“There you go,” Gale said, shining his light on the lower corner of the front window.

Hunter crouched down to examine the numbers. Deliberately subtle, it seemed.
As if the perpetrator didn't want his puzzle to be figured out too quickly.
Gale moved the light beam slowly over the numbers, back and forth, left to right, right to left.

They seemed almost even, as if the killer had used a stencil. Hunter traced her fingers over the gold paint.

“Strange, huh?”

“Yeah, very.”

She stood.

“Why bring her here to a wax museum, do you think?” she asked when they stood on the sidewalk in front.

“That's the question, isn't it?”

Hunter took a deep breath as Gale padlocked the door. The air was wet, and above the brick buildings she saw stray snowflakes. She zipped her army jacket, and they walked into the wind around the building, Hunter picturing where the killer had parked in the alley before carrying the woman's body inside.

“When will the insurance company sign off on this, then?” she asked when they'd returned to the police station.

The detective pushed his glasses up on his nose. He shrugged. “Next week?”

“And are you still looking at the owner?”

“Not really. Not much to look at.”

“Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Don't see why not. Why?” he said. “What are you thinking?”

“I don't know yet,” she said. “Hunches.”

“Okay.”

Detective Gale gave Hunter printouts of the case-­file photos and walked her out to the parking lot. As they stood by her car, he pushed his glasses up on his nose and sunk his hands in the pockets of his leather coat. Hunter saw his eyes examining the inside of her car.

“Think it's going to snow?” he said.

“Feels like it.”

They both looked up at the sky.

“Too late for it, really. It's been a strange season,” he said.

“It has.”

“What kind of hunches?” he asked, looking at her directly again through the thick lenses.

Amy Hunter sighed, not wanting to say anything yet. “I just have a funny feeling about this,” she said. “I think maybe you and I are dealing with the same killer.”

This didn't seem to surprise him. “That's why you came,” he said. “Tell me about the numbers.”

“I will.”

“When?”

“Let me check on something first,” she said. “Then I'll call you.”

L
UKE WAS LOADING
suitcases into the back of their car when Charlotte yelled from the front porch that the “inspector” was on the line.

“I'm on the road, in Delaware,” Hunter told him. “Heading back to Tidewater. Could you meet me in fifty minutes?” She added, “It's urgent.”

“Oh, okay.” Luke glanced at his watch. Their plan had been to leave in seven minutes. “Actually, we're just about to get out of town. We're going away for a ­couple of nights, down into the mountains.” He heard Hunter's car engine accelerate. “We'll be back Saturday, early afternoon.”

“Can I ask you to delay your departure? I've just found something I need to share with you.”

“Well, then, sure. I suppose. Although I'll have a restless mixed Lab to contend with. He's a traveling fool. A true road dog. We should've named him Kerouac.”

“I'm sorry, but can I meet you at the church in fifty minutes?”

“I'll be there,” he said.

Luke walked back into the house, feeling a charge; it was as if some of Amy Hunter's excess energy had been transferred to him through the phone line. He tripped going up the steps and nearly fell face first onto the porch. “Jeez,” he muttered, looking back to see what he'd tripped over.

Charlotte was in the kitchen, filling Sneakers's travel bag with toys and chew treats. Classical piano music was playing on her CD—­maybe Liszt, Luke thought, but probably not.

“You're not going to believe this,” he said.

 

Chapter 18

A
GGIE CARRIED IN
a steaming mug of coffee, set it on the coaster on Luke's desk, straightened his stapler and flipped his desk calendar to the correct day. She was dressed in a lovely black outfit today, her hair styled, frosted, and sprayed enough to withstand a Category 2 hurricane.

“Thank you, Ag.”

“My pleasure.”

Five minutes later she was back.

“Amy Hunter is here again?” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “I informed her I didn't know if you were available. Would you like me to say you're on a conference call?”

“No, please have her come in.”

Hunter walked in, her hair wildly disheveled. Luke stood to greet her.

“Thanks, thanks for seeing me.”

“Sure.”

She exhaled as if she had run the last half mile. One of her collar points was up, the other flat. Luke gestured for her to have a seat.

“I hit on something today,” she said, sitting on just the front edge of the chair, “that's starting to freak me out a little bit. I'd like to share it with you, if I could.”

“This is something besides Jackson Pynne?”

“Right, something besides that.”

She placed a nine-­by-­twelve envelope on his desk.

“I have to put this in context first.”

Luke nodded. Hunter told him what she'd learned about the Delaware arson case from Detective Michael Gale: The unidentified female victim. The medical examiner's ruling that she hadn't died as a result of the fire. The owner Mervin Coleman and his conviction for insurance fraud.

She showed him the laser printouts Gale had given her of the window glass.

Luke studied the image: 68 23.

“I already looked up Psalm 68, verse 23,” Hunter said. “Doesn't fit.”

“Okay.”

“I just wonder if there's another one. Or something else it could be.”

Luke reached for his Bible and opened it. He knew that the only books with sixty-­eight chapters were Psalms, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. He went to Isaiah first, then tried Jeremiah. Then he turned to Psalm 68 and checked anyway.

Line 23:
That your foot may crush them in blood.

No, she was right, it didn't fit.

He felt the texture of the familiar thin paper between his fingers. The attic rafters creaked loudly in several places, as if parts of the building were communicating with one another. Hunter, leaning her elbows forward on his desk, watched intently.

“What theories do they have in Delaware about the numbers?” he asked. “Anything?”

“They don't know. They thought maybe gangs for a while. I think they're probably just going to chalk it up to not meaning anything.”

Luke looked at the open Bible and got a different idea.

Change the punctuation
.

He went back to Psalm 68 and tried verses 2 and 3.

He looked at Hunter's expectant, light brown eyes, her smooth cheeks still pink from the cold. Then he turned the Bible around, pushed it toward her and let her read.

As smoke is driven away, so drive them away, As wax melts before the fire, So let the wicked perish at the presence of God

But let the righ­teous be glad; Let them rejoice before God; Yes, let them rejoice exceedingly.

Hunter's eyes went back to his. “Holy crap,” she said.

Luke half smiled.

“Sorry,” she said.

He pulled the Bible back across the desk and read the words again. The idea of getting away into the mountains suddenly wasn't as enticing as it had been an hour ago.

“You want to know something?” she said. She was standing now, her eyes looking out through the window glass like restless thoughts. “The first time you mentioned this?—­the Psalms thing?—­I didn't really buy it. Not all the way—­”

“I know.”

“I mean, I thought it
could
be something. But it also might just be coincidence. Like we were reading too much into it.”

“I wondered myself.”

“I still don't know that I'm a hundred percent.” Her right hand was a fist softly pumping the air. “But if it's a coincidence, it's now two coincidences. And that's freaking me out a little bit. You know?”

“I know. Me, too.”

He could see that she was anxious to get away, as if there were someplace specific she must go—­and maybe there was. “Anyway. I'm sorry to have kept you from your trip. If you think of anything else, please call me, okay?”

“I will. Although we're going to be in the mountains, as I said, and may not have ser­vice.”

“All right. Well, have a safe trip.”

Luke stood to shake her hand. But she surprised him by coming around the desk and giving him a quick hug, her face cool and smooth against his. His eyes reflexively went to the outer office, where Agnes Collins was seated behind her desk.

“T
HE THING ABOU
T
Pynne is that he knows how to hide,” Gil Rankin was explaining to Kirby Moss. “Okay?”

Moss had arrived at the house on Jimmy Creek just after four-­thirty, more than an hour late. Something his client wouldn't have allowed, but what could he do about that? The two of them were seated on leather armchairs in the living room, a room that reminded Rankin of a private club, lots of leather and dark wood, maritime oil paintings on the walls. Blinds and drapes drawn.

Moss held a Diet Coke on his right leg. “Can't hide forever,” he said, sounding unconcerned.

“That's not the point,” Rankin said. Pynne owned a town house in the county, a summer rental property on the water, southwest of there. If he returned to Tidewater, that's likely where he'd go. So Moss needed to keep surveillance on it.

“Of course.” Moss trying a smile.

Rankin didn't tell him that he'd been to the town house himself on Tuesday. That he'd broken into the garage. Only the Client knew that part of it. Such was their agreement, “as it was written.” Although, of course, no part of the agreement was in writing.

“At the same time, poke around,” he told Moss. “Stay inconspicuous, but keep your eyes open.
Listen.
It might take a ­couple of days for him to return, I'm told. There's even a chance he'll show up to church on Sunday.”

“Scene of the crime.”

“Right, so you need to be there. In case it happens.”

“If we haven't found him before then.”

“Right.”

“And if he doesn't show at all?”

Moss drank his soda, keeping his eyes on him. Funny looking man, Rankin thought, round face, crew cut, eyes that darted around a lot. Moss wanting to start a conversation, while he wanted to keep it strictly business, not wanting to hear about Moss's family in Massachusetts because then Moss would want to know about his. Talking about his wife and sons would be the same as getting them involved. And that wasn't going to happen. No, sir. That wasn't any of Moss's business.

“If I need to, I've got a way of getting his attention,” Rankin said. “Okay? But that's between me and him. Let it sit a day or two. I don't want him going to the fucking police.”

“Gotcha.” Moss went to his soda again, although Rankin was sure he didn't know what he was talking about. He even wondered for a moment if he really needed Kirby Moss in order to finish this thing.