Killing Hope (Gabe Quinn Thriller) (57 page)

He handed over a sheet of paper. It was a print-out from an email attachment. The picture of an old-fashioned glass and steel syringe. I hadn’t seen one like it in years.

‘A medical hypodermic.’ I said. ‘Which points to our killer.’

‘Correct. The other was this.’

The second sheet had a picture of a small object on it. Shot next to an angled ruler for sizing purposes. Taken against a grey nondescript backcloth. The object was about the size of a thumbnail. Silver in color with what appeared to be a square black enamel inlay. Somebody had brushed off dirt and ten years of grime, but not very well.

Something grabbed my gut and squeezed it.

I stared at the photograph, mind whirling. It was one of those dumbfounding moments where the universe flips on its head and everything you thought you knew suddenly doesn’t add up any more. Marty must have seen my thunderstruck expression, because he immediately asked:

‘Does it mean something to you, Detective?’

I swallowed over a gritty tongue. Shook my head.

Marty nodded. Gave me a
you don’t look so sure
look. I wasn’t sure if he believed me. I knew I didn’t.

‘All right. Well, look, I’ll give you a shout when the dental results come through.’

He left me with the print-outs.

My hand was shaking.

I looked again at the second photograph. Experienced the same gut-clutching nausea that sent me rushing to the restroom.

159

^{___________________________}

Michael Shakes didn’t believe in goblins and fairies. But he did believe in the spiritual realm. In fact, he had what he considered a pretty good handle on the life thereafter. Seen enough of death to know that something inexplicable happened at the moment life left a body. It also helped that he’d grown up with a medium in the family. His mother’s sister, his aunt. Considered eccentric and probably insane by most of the people who came into her life. His aunt had been born blind. But she’d had vision. Able to see things beyond this worldly plane. He’d had a good bond with her. Fascinated by her insights throughout his childhood. So it had come as no surprise that she’d visited him after her passing. In a dream. Told him she’d send signs whenever he needed her help.

Michael Shakes believed in the spiritual realm. But he’d never believed his aunt could contact him from the other side.

Until now.

160

^{___________________________}

We all need somebody we can confide in. How does the saying go – a problem shared is a problem halved? Trouble is, I believe that a problem shared is more often a problem doubled. Stands to reason, right? There are things I keep inside. Demons I don’t dare let loose. But talking helps. Right? Presently, there was only one person I could rely on with my life in Vegas and we were staring at each other across a copying machine in a small ante-chamber attached to the Situation Room. Alone. Looking like we’d both just realized we’d eaten bad eggs for breakfast.

‘Call me numb, but I don’t get it,’ Sonny was saying as she stared at the print-out given to me by Marty Gunner. ‘You say this is
yours
and the Feds found it with a body on the Copes farm?’

I nodded.

I saw Sonny’s brow furrow as she tried to work it out.

‘You’re absolutely certain? No way you could be mistaken? There must be hundreds of these with the same design.’

‘No coincidence, Sonny.’ I was deadly serious. ‘It’s mine all right. They were handmade for our wedding day. See the engraving?’

Somebody had tried to brush away soil and made a bad job of it. Still, you could see the letter G engraved into the enamel, down to the silver.

‘We had matching pairs.’ I said. ‘I had the cufflinks. Hope had the earrings. We had the our initials G and H engraved specially into the onyx. G on one. H on the other.’

‘And you told Marty it wasn’t yours?’

I didn’t know why I’d lied. Impulsiveness, I guess. We’ve all been there.

Sonny was shaking her head, biting a lip. ‘Gabe, I don’t know what to say. How is this possible?’

‘The same way it was possible the killer used my handcuffs on Marlene van den Berg’s live-in butler.’

‘That’s as good as saying he’s been watching you for years. Collecting Celebrity Cop memorabilia along the way. Gabe, that’s not just weird, it’s scary.’

I saw her examine the photograph again, as if trying to find some small, previously missed detail to convince me otherwise. But there was no disguising it. It was what it was.

‘And you’re absolutely certain?’

161

^{___________________________}

Sonny handed back the print-out. I could see her figuring things out. Still skeptical, but warming to the crazy idea.

‘So, this cufflink,’ she said. ‘How do you suppose it came into his possession? We’re talking a minimum of ten years ago, Gabe.’

I chewed lip. How had my cufflink come into the possession of a serial killer? I thought about it, hard. Heard retired synapses spark back to life as an old memory emerged.

‘We were at an awards dinner in Memphis.’ I began.

‘We?’

‘Hope, me and the kids. Must be going on twenty years ago now. Some loony tune posing as a waiter tried to kill the Mayor with an ice pick. Right there in front of fifty top law enforcement personnel. A scuffle broke out. It took a few of us to apprehend him. Bring him down. Turned out he was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood with an axe to grind against our newly-appointed black mayor.’

‘And the cufflink?’

‘Lost during the scrap.’

‘Where’s this guy now – the white supremacist?’

‘No idea. He got twenty years for attempted second degree. Plus, he had outstanding warrants. Mainly in assault and battery. I guess he might have made parole by now.’

‘Was his name Ethan Davey Copes?’

I smiled. ‘You know, Sonny, I don’t recall. Either way, Ethan would have been just a boy at the time.’

 
‘Could be a friend of the Copes family. Or a distant relative. Somebody who had a bad influence on Ethan.’

Was that where I’d heard the name before? I wondered. We’d have to look into it. See if the Aryan Brother had made parole. Rule him either in or out of the investigation.

‘I guess the next question is, Gabe: why did The Undertaker plant it on a ten-year-old corpse?’

Again, I thought about it. But time and age doesn’t always make wine taste better.

‘I don’t know.’ I said. But I had suspicions. I just wasn’t prepared to deal with them yet.

The door opened. Michael Shakes appeared. Framed in the doorway. He looked like a man who had just won a sizeable amount on the spin of a roulette wheel.

‘Milk? You okay? What is it’

His grin was filled with brilliant white teeth.

‘Give me five, people. I just uncovered the killer’s connection. For real.’

162

^{___________________________}

In retrospect, being diagnosed with a condition hadn’t necessarily been a bad thing. Certainly, it had its drawbacks. He’d been picked on in school. Bullied out of school. Ostracized and left to his own devises most of the time. But solitude had brought focus.

While the other kids had played with their bats and their balls, he’d been high in a treetop. Or on a roof. Watching clouds skate across the sky. Spying all sorts of weird and wonderful goings on:

An elephant.

A rocket ship.

The American President with his face blown off …

The more he’d studied the world around him, the more he’d come to understand there were hidden meanings within the patterns. Nature’s hieroglyphs. Deciphering them had been like a blind man learning a foreign language by lip-reading alone. But he’d mastered it.

By the time puberty had opened up a whole new world of experiences to him, he’d started to see his condition as a gift.

But nothing in life was free. Everything came at a price.

Relationships had become distractions.

Schooling unable to keep up with his probative mind.

People, playthings.

After all, you couldn’t trade away your mortal veil without losing a little of your humanity.

163

^{___________________________}

‘It’s strange how it came about.’ Mike Shakes was telling us. ‘So bear with me.’

His grin was gone but he still looked pumped. He sounded like a child who had witnessed an automobile crash and wanted his friends to come along and see the grisly wreckage for themselves.

‘Something drew me back to the Treasure Island crime scene. Don’t ask me what. Let’s say a hunch.’

‘Did you get to speak with Brandon Chu?’

‘Strange you should ask that, Sonny. No. I was en route to do just that when that something I mentioned made me turn around and head to Treasure Island. Like I say, let’s call it a hunch. So I obeyed. I didn’t know what I’d find – if anything. When I got there, the place was still sealed up. The CSU had pretty much cleared out the digs. Everything was waiting for the cleansing crew to come and make the place habitable again. So I moseyed around. Opening drawers. Looking under beds. That kind of thing. Anyway, I was in the first guest room when something strange happened.’

‘You realized you were crap at story-telling.’ Sonny said.

Shakes grinned. ‘The clock radio turned on all by itself.’

‘And those things have timers.’ Sonny said dismissively. ‘It’s a notorious trick. The previous guests set the radio alarm to come on at full volume in the middle of the night. Just to freak out the next occupiers.’