Trial and Terror (10 page)

“It’s pretty juicy.” He was taunting her.

“I mean it.”

“SK’s medical records show she was pregnant when she was 17.”

Summer spun away, rubbing her eyes. “If the D.A. finds out, at the very least they’ll leak it to the press and try to influence the jury pool. An abortion to go with priors for prostitution.”

“How do you know she had an abortion?” He was so cool, so unflappable. A beach bum with a cop’s brain.

“She told me she has no family,” Summer said. “Besides, if you were whoring, would you take time off to have a kid?”

“Good point.”

“If you don’t promise me right now that you will investigate only what I tell you to investigate, I’m dropping you from the case.”

Tai eyed the ceiling, then her. “OK, OK. I promise.”

“All right. Now I need you to check out something for me.”

She told him about Strickland.

Afterward, Tai said, “Quite a stretch. A whole lot of coincidence to digest at once, and tough to prove without a way to ID Strickland’s body.”

“Back then, they didn’t have DNA technology.”

“You’d need DNA from Strickland to match against his corpse, assuming they’ll let you dig him up.”

“I’ll take care of that.”

Tai stared at Summer.

Summer stared back. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I think it’s sexy the way you take charge.” He downed the last of his coffee. “Not going to report me to the PC police, are you?”

“If I thought it would do any good, I might. Now get out. I have work and so do you. Start collecting background on Strickland.”

Tai hoisted himself up. “I’m going, I’m going. First stop, Strickland’s hometown. Where was he raised?”

“Birch Creek, but—”

“I know it. About six hundred miles north of here. A real hick town. The town used to have a problem with kids hanging out in the 7-11 parking lot, drinking beer and vandalizing cars. So the store started piping muzak outside. Drove them away.”

“Ingenious, but travel’s not in the budget,” she said. “Jon will never approve it.”

“I don’t care.”

Summer was wary of Tai’s eagerness.

Tai seemed to read her thoughts. “Look, it’s simple,” he said. “To turn up information on someone who’s dead, not only
can
you go home again, you have to.”

Chapter 11

“This is the brass cup
that Winston Taylor, the Vampire of Sedona, used to scoop the blood of victims before drinking it,” Gupta Mahakavi, collector of the macabre, told Summer.

Summer had struggled with antiquated microfiche at the library before finding an article dated sixteen years ago describing an auction to raise money for Sean Strickland’s victims. Two phone calls and a three-hour drive later, here she was, talking to a retired forensics expert with the world’s most extensive collection of serial killer memorabilia.

In an accent spiced with one part Bombay and one part Hollywood action adventure, Mahakavi had eagerly shown Summer display cases crammed with blood-rusted knives, guns, daggers, electric saws, a garbage disposal, garbage bags, ropes, handcuffs, packets of heavy-duty condoms, and other tools of the trade.

“What do the scratches on the side of the cup signify?” Summer asked.

“Winston,” Mahakavi said—he called his subjects by their first names—“filed those symbols himself with the same knife used in his crimes. Six marks, six victims.”

The cup was still rusted with blood, which made it somehow more palatable than fresh kill, Summer thought. “What drives someone to do things like this?”

“Besides an intense feeling of alienation and grandiosity? It is difficult to generalize. Many of them were abused or abandoned as children, or paranoid, or chemically imbalanced, or brimming with the feeling that they were wronged in some way, either by an individual or individuals or by society. Many slipped through cracks in the system. When one backtracks, one often can see that there were indications all along. For example, when Winston went from sating his thirst for blood by killing rabbits to cats and dogs, his neighbors complained to the police. But they did nothing; and as a consequence, he became emboldened and graduated to
Homo sapiens
.”

Mahakavi tapped the top of the case. “From here down to there”—he swept his hand to the right—“are the rank amateurs. Like Winston, they lacked ingenuity. They were impulsive. Over there, if you’re interested, I have some marvelous artifacts from The Horoscope Killer, who stymied police for ten years. I also bought the Bible owned by the Mad Monk. He terrorized religious leaders across the state for two years. And in that display case over there, I have the client list of the prostitute Gwendolyn, one of the few female serial killers.”

“Do you have any”—she searched for the right word—“collectibles from Sean Strickland?”

Mahakavi was jittery. At first, Summer thought he was ill, but then realized he was laughing silently. “Sean fits into the amateur category, although he certainly held delusions of being one of the grand men of serial murder. Of course, he did manage to kill four men involved in law enforcement, and that is no easy task, but really, when you get down to it, he lacked imagination.”

“Why did Strickland kill law enforcement?”

“Sean believed he was the ultimate law. He felt he had to destroy the law in order to promote his own law.”

“What law was that?”

“He didn’t say.”

“What about the marks he left on the victims’ backs?”

Summer watched Mahakavi’s toes curl in his sandals. “I can see you are a fan of the genre. What was your name again?”

“Summer.”

“Ah, yes. At the time, the police were unable to decipher the mark—not marks, which was a popular misconception. When Strickland perished, they simply closed the case. But subsequently I was able to determine its meaning.”

“And?”

“
Om
.”

“What?”

“The lines he drew on his victims’ skin represent the Hindu symbol
Om
, which is used in chants, particularly in Buddhism. It is a mantra used in contemplating the ultimate reality—oneness with the universe. But Sean didn’t render it correctly. Come with me.”

Summer moved down the row of cases with Mahakavi, who stopped at a case containing a sheet of paper with two sets of squiggly lines, side by side. “The symbol on the right is a copy of the symbol Strickland drew on his victims. The one on the left is the correct rendition of
Om
. As you can see, they are identical, except for the line on the bottom right that twists incorrectly.”

And both, Summer noted, were similar, though not identical, to the mark on Gundy’s back.

“Strickland was strictly a thug,” Mahakavi said. “Why on earth would you be interested in him?”

“My father was the investigator on the case.”

“You are Wib Neuwirth’s daughter?” Mahakavi’s face beamed. “This is certainly an honor. He is retired now?”

“He died six months ago.”

“Oh? I am sorry for your loss.”

Summer offered a perfunctory “Thank you.”

“At last, I will be able to close Sean’s file. Detective Neuwirth was the last one.”

“Last what?”

Mahakavi acted surprised that Summer didn’t know. “Why, the last person involved in the Strickland case to die.”

Summer jammed her hands under her armpits. She was cold. Mahakavi kept the temperature regulated to protect his collection. “Can I see the letter from Strickland to my father that you bought at auction?”

Two cases down, a letter was tacked inside, a stamped envelope (no return address) perched on a stand next to it. An auctioneer’s certificate of authenticity was posted behind it.

The letter was composed of letters cut out of magazines, books, and newspapers, glued to the paper:

Mahakavi sucked his front teeth. “Notice how he spelled the first ‘you’re’?’ Sean was never one to pay attention to details.”

Summer remembered the moment Wib opened the note, the worry that etched his face, the way his breathing became more focused, more labored, fear for his family driving blood through his heart. She flashed to the moment that had haunted her through her teens—when, on a misty night, Strickland had broken into their home through Summer’s window. She awoke to see Strickland’s lean face, hair plastered to his skull, his eyes dull and bloodshot.

She screamed and Wib came running, gun drawn. Then an explosion of gunfire as Wib shot at Strickland, who took off across the yard. The start of a nightmare that didn’t end until Wib took off in hot pursuit, tires hydroplaning on the twisting road, and drove Strickland off the side of a mountain, where Strickland had died in a fiery ball.

Unless he hadn’t.

Summer studied the letter, the cracked and yellowing paper.
If
Strickland were alive and carrying on his vendetta, Gundy might not be the only one to end up with his skull crushed, a lipstick calling card scrawled on his back. She could be next.

Summer superimposed her memory of Strickland with the face of Marsalis. Both must have been born around the same time, were staple-thin, unkempt, reptilian in speech and manner, insane. What if they were the same man?

Summer realized the collector was talking to her. “What?”

Mahakavi was pointing to his phone. “I
said
, would you mind if I took your picture? I would like to add it to the archive. After all, it is not every day the daughter of the investigating officer of a serial murderer visits me.”

Chapter 12

Summer didn’t return home
until dusk, a violet-gilded sunset. She stopped to listen to the crickets and the wheeze of insects, like the noise that had been ringing in her ears at work. Habit prevented her from taking out her keys until she was sure no one lurked.

The windows of her apartment were clammed shut, the air inside dead and still. She flipped on the light. She moved furtively, unsure of where Marsalis’s surveillance cameras were placed or what he could see. She had decided to avoid compromising positions. She changed clothes by hanging a blanket over her head. Only made calls from throwaway cell phones, which she quickly discarded. Didn’t bring office paperwork home.

When she passed by her computer monitor, she jumped back. Marsalis’s face shone onscreen. Large letters underneath:
Answers to your questions, but first, answers to my questions
. Then an Internet address.

She backed away, as if the machine could infect her, and paced her apartment until she calmed down. She felt weak, her stomach all growly, and realized she hadn’t eaten all day. She pulled a box of cereal out of the pantry and stuffed Cheerios in her mouth, spilling crumbs on the floor; put the box back, realized she was still hungry, munched some more, put the box back; then finished it off and tossed the empty box into the trash.

When she wasn’t shaky anymore, she sat down and faced the monitor.

She logged on. Marsalis had clearly juiced up her computer with more RAM, speed, a faster modem, and software that could download full-motion video and stereo sound.

She typed in the address Marsalis had left her, and the software spirited her through cyberspace to a homepage plastered with a photo of herself. A banner underneath said,
Click here, Summer.
When she did, she was faced with a conundrum.

The answers are the passwords. Without the passwords, you will be denied the answers you seek
.

What answers? she wondered. About Sonia, Wib, Strickland, the existence of the video of Gundy’s murder? Or were these answers to questions Summer hadn’t even thought of?

It was a test. She answered basic questions like date of birth, year of high school graduation, college graduation, law class ranking. Then the questions got more personal: form of birth control, favorite sexual position, the name of the last man she’d spent the night with.

When she lied (or forgot), the computer chastised her and wouldn’t let her go on.

Summer’s hands were sweaty; her fingers slipped on the mouse. She was on a scavenger hunt for her life. But to learn what Marsalis knew meant she had to play his game.