Killing Hope (Gabe Quinn Thriller) (49 page)

Sounds like a killer, doesn’t it?

 
‘And here’s the double whammy,’ Jamie continued, trying to keep a reign on her excitement, ‘the rose retailer delivered a cool-pack of Dark Secret roses to the Ramada on Vermont last Friday.’

‘Just in time for the killings,’ I breathed. ‘Great work, Jamie. Looks like you’ve unmasked our boy. The next question is: do we have a billing address?’

It was a place just outside of Jackson, Tennessee. Back in my home State. Closer to Bill’s neck of the woods than mine. Was this where I’d heard the name before?

‘Text me the address.’ I said. ‘And while you’re at it, Jamie, forward copies of both lists through to the Situation Room here, in Vegas.’

I began to feel a little of Jamie’s excitement rub off.

Were we finally on
The Undertaker’s
heels?

‘We have his name?’ Sonny asked as I ended the call.

‘Plus a Tennessee billing address.’

‘Holy shit. We’ve got him, Gabe. We’ve got the son of a bitch. What now?’

138

^{___________________________}

Assuming identities sometimes meant adopting personality traits. Not only did it add to the realism of the role, it also made his actions seem somehow more excusable. Let’s face it, you couldn’t pretend to be Joe Soap the Bank Manager if all you did was talk street and wear gang colors.
The Undertaker’s
namesake had dabbled with hookers. Therefore, so did he. But unlike his namesake, he’d used them as guinea pigs. Mainly for testing out his homemade chemical concoctions. These days he didn’t need to. He’d long since perfected the formulations. These days he used them for stress relief.

The killer now being hunted throughout Nevada wasn’t familiar with this part of town. But every town had one. They were all the same, the world over. Not hard to find. The scent of the working girls gave it away.

The radioactive dial on his watch told him it was just after 2 a.m.. And yet here they were: the gutter flowers – in full bloom and waiting to be plucked.

He picked her out of the line-up: the one with the tiny plastic skirt and the leopard-print tank top. High black heels. Long bleached hair extensions. Eyes caked in black mascara. Anything but his type. This was role play, remember?

He showed her the money. She feigned delight. Let him check out the merchandise. She even knew of a cozy backstreet motel where they could hang out and have fun together. Maybe snort some cocaine if her dealer was home.

The killer known only to himself as Randall Fisk gave her a hundred dollar bill and she climbed eagerly aboard.

139

^{___________________________}

It was almost four in the morning by the time we got back to Sin City. But you wouldn’t know it; the place looked just as busy as it had done in daylight hours, if not busier.

Sonny dropped me off outside the
Luxor
.

‘Get some rest.’ She ordered as I climbed stiffly out of her family SUV. ‘Seriously, Gabe. I mean it. You need it. Let the Feds do the legwork tonight.’

‘Thanks for the ride home, Sonny.’ I said. ‘I’ll be all right. Catch up with you later.’

I watched her drive away, down the glittery Strip. Went inside to hotel registration. Checked out. Then made my way to the Situation Room at the
MGM Grand
. You see, I am not the world’s best at taking advise either.

The FBI and I had something in common: we were both insomniacs. The Situation Room was buzzing with overnight personnel. Collating information. Inputting data. Processing. Then distributing to Agents out in the Field.

I tried to spot Bill.

‘Can I help you, Detective Quinn?’

He was a middle-aged G-Man with a grey goatee and salt-and-pepper hair. A checked waistcoat holding in a middle-age paunch. Dark circles under puppy dog eyes.

‘SAC Teague?’ I said.

‘Retired for the night, as far as I know. I wouldn’t risk waking him either – unless it’s a life or death emergency.’

He stuck out a hand. I shook it.

‘The name’s Marty Gunner. Assistant Director of the Critical Incident Response Group. I just flew in from Quantico. Got here a couple of hours ago.’

‘Taking over from Bill?’

‘Assisting. The Director feels two heads are better than one. We have most of our BAU personnel relocated here now. Including our best Profilers and analysts.’

‘Fuller’s pulling out all the stops.’

‘We’d all do the same if we were in his position.’ He made a nod at my facial wounds. At the blood still damp on my shirt and tie. ‘Can I ask what happened?’

‘Old habits.’ I said.

‘Anything I can help you with?’

‘As a matter of fact there is.’

I gave the Assistant Director the task of unveiling Ethan Davey Copes.

Marty copied the address from my cell phone. ‘I’ll get my people straight onto this. I’ll also scramble a tactical unit to Jackson. See if we can shake this guy down.’

It would take time for Marty’s tactical unit to deploy. To check out the address. To report back. Time for even the FBI’s powerful computer system to regurgitate every scrap of information it had on Ethan Davey Copes. Then even more time for all the data pieces to come together to form a digital picture of
The Undertaker.

I found an all-night deli just off the casino floor. Picked up a hefty coffee and a pastrami on rye.

The two evidence bags in my jacket pocket had survived the fist fight better than me. I put them on the table. The smaller of the two held a credit-card-sized piece of plastic found at the Hoagland crime scene. I couldn’t look at it without rage pluming inside. The larger bag contained the book retrieved from the
Bellagio
crime scene.

I sat at one of the tables overlooking a bank of screens showing horse races from around the world. Used a napkin to handle the book out of the clear plastic wallet.

The world is full of people who reckon they know best. Black when it should be white. Left when it should be right. These days, everybody’s a social commentator. The killer had defaced the books. Every page crossed out with a bold red marker pen. With the single world TRASH scrawled across, on the diagonal.

The killer’s handwriting was capitalized, with a slight leftward-lean. I wondered if we had an expert on hand who could read between the lines. Give us a new slant on
The Undertaker’s
character.

But the real question was: why had
The Undertaker
defaced one of Bill’s books?

140

^{___________________________}

God was a chemist. It was there. In black and white. Biology 101. Anyone who didn’t think so didn’t know squat about anything.

His love affair with chemicals came about purely by chance, one summer break. His grandparents had bought him a chemistry set for his twelfth birthday. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing that would cause him to overturn medical science. Just a simple kit of test tubes, litmus papers and packets of sugar-like compounds. But it would be enough to spark curiosity in his young, probative mind.

The set had remained boxed-up for months. Gathering dust on a shelf. Then he’d broken his leg falling from a tree. A stupid mistake; too busy watching cloud patterns and daydreaming of future happenings to notice how high he’d climbed. The doctor had confined him to his room. With a prescription for plenty of medication and bed rest. The whole summer long.

Boredom soon set in. There was only so much TV to watch. Only so many books to read. He’d opened the chemistry set after the fourth day of imprisonment. Wondered why he’d never done so before.

Within the first week, he’d made something that killed flies the moment it touched them. Burned them to a crisp. Smoking. He’d had to raid the kitchen and the garden shed to achieve it. Do lots of experimenting. Testing. Until he’d mastered it. Tamed it. The week after that he’d created a substance that made his skin go numb. A week later he’d devised a solution capable of enhancing the effects of his painkillers.

He’d soon discovered that chemicals were all-powerful. Capable of great healing and great harm. In the wrong hands they were dangerous. But in the right hands they were godlike.

Chemistry was fundamentally simple.

Atoms made elements made molecules made substances.

It was the whole of everything.

A universe in a drop of water.

The trick was knowing what chemicals worked well together, which could enhance life and which could snuff life.

141

^{___________________________}

Special Weapons and Tactics Agent Gary Cornsilk was so keyed-up he could gladly puke. But he held it in. The helicopter was cramped. In attack-mode black-out. The puke would have ruined everything: equipment, armor, his credibility.

Reputation was golden in this game.

Under the cover of darkness, the dark grey military-style Bell helicopter was heading west out of Jackson. Skimming along the South Fork tributary of the Forked Deer River system. Out towards the cold Mississippi. Every now and then it banked steeply to avoid a bridge or power lines. Or swerved around an out-branching of snow-crusted trees. The pilot was good. Kept it tight against the icy deck. On this moonless night, Cornsilk could barely make out the trees, let alone the black snake of freezing water they were following.

‘
You better hit the ground running or the ground will come up and kick you in the face.’

Cornsilk recalled the words of his Training Officer. He’d almost baulked when the command had come through from the Memphis Field Office. Heights unnerved him. Always had. But he dared not show it.

In this game, weakness meant ridicule.

The pilot was piping music into their earpieces:
Ride of the Valkyries
. Totally unapt. This wasn’t Vietnam. None of these boys had seen real action. They were all wet behind the ears; like him. All out to prove something. Him too.

The chopper skewed on its side for a few seconds as it yawed around a bend in the river. Cornsilk tasted bile rise in his throat. Didn’t show it. One of his colleagues pulled a comical face. Cornsilk laughed along with the rest of the six-man FBI SWAT team.