The Screaming Room (13 page)

“The suspects have either changed their MO again, or they've gotten sloppy,” said Margaret, who, along with Thomlinson, had been invited to a brainstorming session in the Lieutenant's office. “The ME says the victim was struck twice on the left temple before being scalped, not the right parietal like all the others. And it doesn't look like the perp stopped to pose the body. The vic was found curled inside a tunnel.”

“Could be a copycat,” said Thomlinson. “He'd know about the scalping from the papers.”

“What do we got on the victim?” Driscoll asked.

“One Francis Palmer from San Antonio, Texas. Like Miss Moneybags, not exactly a tourist. He was in town for an Internet convention. Headed up a company that designed Web sites for entrepreneurial self-starters. The guy's got a prior, John. He was busted three years ago for child molestation.”

“Now there's a connection. These twins have a beef with sexual abusers. That's evident by the tattoos on the scalps. That makes the killings far from random. We may be dealing with vengeful executions. Anything yet from Interpol?”

“On it,” said Thomlinson, dashing out of the office.

“Why'd our guy at the aquarium get two hits?” Margaret pondered aloud.

“Crime Scene may have the answer to that one. It could be a simple one. The blood trail might suggest the first blow didn't kill him. He lunges for his assailant and whack! He gets it again. Whatever the reason, I don't think they're getting sloppy. And I don't buy into the copycat theory. I think they've turned their anger up a notch. The fact that the body wasn't posed says to me the killer was rushed—interrupted by someone approaching.”

“Or he didn't want to spend more time with the scumbag than he had to.”

Driscoll recognized revulsion in the Sergeant's voice. He fought back the impulse to take her by the hand. Seeking diversion, he picked up the black-and-white photo of the twins. “What turned you two kids into a pair of revenge-seeking killers?” he asked, staring into the eyes of the Kodak-captured innocents.

“My money'd be on the father,” said Margaret, looking like she was about to spit.

Driscoll closed the door to his office. He knew Margaret intimately. Her past was no secret to him. He knew it'd just be a matter of time before this revelation of sexual abuse would stir unwelcome memories.

“Would it help if we talked about it?” he said, taking a seat on the edge of his desk.

Margaret slumped in her chair as if her body were a blowup doll that someone had pricked with a needle. “Is it this case?…I don't know. I feel sorta stretched. About everything. So stretched, that I tried to reach my therapist from when I was a kid. She's the only one I know. And wouldn't you know it. The woman's dead. I gotta be honest with you, John, working with you, now, after the death of your wife…”

She stopped talking and scrunched her face. “You know I have feelings for you. That's a given. And I know you have feelings for me. I also know you need time to grieve. But it hasn't been easy for me to sit on those feelings. Especially since her death. Jesus! Look at me! You've lost your wife. Your emotions must be doing somersaults, and I'm complaining about pining. Grow up, Margaret! But that's the problem. When it comes to men, I'm like an eighth grader, for Chrissake! I needn't go into detail. We both know why. Just when I think I got a handle on things, this sexual abuse bombshell explodes in my face. It puts me back in Mary Janes and a training bra with my old man peeping through the keyhole to my bedroom!”

Margaret began to cry. This time, Driscoll took her by the hand. “I can have you reassigned. No one need know why.”

“My emotional baggage is like lint. It's in my pocket no matter where I go.”

“I have a therapist. I don't see her much. But she was there for me after Colette's accident. Her name is Elizabeth. You'd like her.”

Margaret used her hands to wipe tears from her cheeks. Her expression was one of embarrassment. “Look at me. Some gun-totin' detective, huh?”

“A human gun-totin' detective,” Driscoll said with a smile.

“I'm glad we had this time, John. I miss what we had.”

“What we
have,
” Driscoll said. “I'm just in for repair.”

The following morning Driscoll was seated at his desk, perusing the Crime Scene report from the aquarium, when Margaret sauntered in. She appeared out of sorts. After sitting down, she robotically reported that her inquiry into any reported rapes, between siblings or otherwise, in and around Oak Flat, West Virginia, during 1990, had turned up nothing. In retrospect, Driscoll wished he had given the assignment to Thomlinson.

“You okay?”

“Will be.”

“My door is always open.”

“I know. Thank you. I'll be fine. What I need now is distraction. What's that you're reading?”

Driscoll hesitated.

“It's okay, John. The incest inquiry is behind me. It'll help if I stay focused on what's to come.”

He smiled at her. “You know…”

“You gonna tell me what you're reading or do I have to grab the damn file?”

“It's the forensics report on Francis Palmer's blood evidence. Their reenactment of the assault suggests he was stationary when both blows were inflicted to his head. I'm thinking something pissed off our assassin.” Driscoll was about to help himself to a cup of squad room coffee when his desk phone rang.

“Driscoll, here.”

“You've got mail,” the caller said and hung up. Driscoll hadn't a clue to the caller's identity.

He powered on his IBM desktop and was immediately connected to the department's Web site. He clicked on his mailbox, eyes on the screen. There, superimposed under a red and white bull's-eye, was the face of a male adolescent with wavy blond hair, the color of hay, and piercing aquamarine eyes. To the right of the face was a small speaker icon that Driscoll clicked. The prerecorded voice of Malcolm Shewster sounded through the desktop's speaker.

“John, whoever or whatever you're pursuing is yesterday's news. This is our boy! My team of specialists is to be commended. You now have what you wanted from the start. The sister will have the same face, give or take a few curls. Take a good look into those eyes, John. He's out there and he's daring you to nab him. And nab him you will. Set your eyes on the prize. And, John, you may as well get used to looking at that face because this afternoon its hits every newsstand and newswire in the nation with something the city has left out. A hefty bounty. And that's only step one in a full-scale Shewster alliance. Over and out. For now.”

Driscoll's eyes locked on Margaret's. “Alliance? The man asked me if he could have his team project a current-day likeness of the twins. That's all. What's with the hefty bounty and an alliance? I never agreed to any alliance.”

“Usually, grieving parents are Lone Rangers.”

“I know. So far the only alliance he's made is with
our
evidence and
our
investigation. This guy's made his fortune on the backs of people, not hand in hand with them. He's gotten himself very involved in this case. Just how far does that involvement go? The man's up to something. I'm sure of it. Which means you and I are gonna keep a short leash on him.”

It was Saturday, just before 8:00
P.M
. on Fifth Avenue at East Fiftieth Street in New York City. Pedestrians were making their way inside Saint Patrick's Cathedral only to exit a few minutes later spattered by holy water. The avenue was getting ready for evening. Neon lights were slowly coming to life above store windows as taxicabs hauled sightseers to restaurants, movie theaters, and Broadway shows. A woman stood at Saint Patrick's southwest corner, perplexed by the endless flow of vehicular traffic. She seemed distracted, anxious, turning her head furtively toward the cathedral's entrance. She carried a finger-worn Polaroid of a man in a plaid shirt overlooking a cornfield. It had been protected by a frayed white napkin into which she now spit her gum. She tossed the napkin into a trash can, held the photo against her chest, climbed the steps of the cathedral, and slipped inside.

Compared to the hubbub on the avenue, the church was sedate; a welcome sanctuary. She walked down the center aisle, searching left and right for the man she had typed “hello” to eight months ago in a MySpace chat room. They had become virtual lovers, disclosing a mutual predilection for oddity and postpubescent teens. It was now time to meet and gratify their sexual longings together.

Her heartthrob was nowhere in sight. Where could he be? She checked her watch. It was nearing 8:10. They were supposed to meet at 8:02, the time they first met over the Internet. Could her Timex be running fast?

In the second row her gaze fell upon a gentleman who smiled at her as though he had known her all her life.

“My God, it's you!”

The man stood and moved toward her. “I was beginning to think you had changed your mind.”

“I was standing outside trying to get up the courage to come in. I still can't believe we're going through with this. Oh, Alex, I do love you so.”

“And I you,” he murmured. “But I have a confession to make.”

Puzzled eyes looked back at him.

“Tara, I think I've committed a sin. And of all days to commit it!”

“What did you do?”

“I defaced church property.”

“Go on!”

“No, really,” he said, taking her hand. “Come, I'll show you.”

He led her behind the main altar into a darkened circular aisle, faintly illuminated by the candles that were burning before the altar of the Blessed Virgin.

“Look,” he whispered, pointing to his handiwork on the Virgin's marble pedestal.

Tara's eyes widened as they took in the arabesque letters: A and T intertwined.

“Alex and Tara, about to start their flight of fancy. Right here,” he whispered.

“Mmm umm.”

“Don't worry. I used an erasable marker. One swipe with a sponge and we're history.”

They stood solemnly before the carved image of the Madonna. There was no one else in sight. It was nearing half-past eight, the meeting time he had arranged with the gentleman on the phone for their threesome.

A stir in the darkness of the alcove interrupted their exuberance. Like a flutter of wings or the friction of cloth. Something moved, undefined, unidentified.

They heard a cracking sound, like the shattering of stone. Alex was felled by blinding pain. Then blackness set in.

Before Tara knew what had happened, she heard the sound again.

Father Xavier Thomas, glistening in vestments of green and gold, stood majestically at the rear of the church, about to follow the procession of altar servers, lectors, and Eucharistic Ministers down the center aisle of the historic cathedral. The church bells were pealing. Their tolling marked 6:58
A.M
. In two minutes, Mass would begin. The latecomers, skittering in the nave of the cathedral, were met by the soft smile of Father Thomas, a true New Yorker who was well accustomed to the chronic tardiness of his time-pressed parishioners.

At the stroke of seven, the organist began the refrain to “Let Us Go Rejoicing,” number 308 in the missalettes. The procession proceeded down the center aisle and all attendees stood to welcome the presiding priest.

“Where'd ya hide them?” Cassie asked.

Angus, crammed in the crowded pew to her right, sang the hymn's lyric and smiled teasingly at her.

“You're not gonna tell me?”

He crooned louder, casting his accomplice a sidelong smirk.

The cleric and his liturgical assistants reached the main altar, bowed before the Lord, and assumed their positions for the opening prayer.

A late parishioner, wishing not to disturb the assembly nor Father Thomas, snuck into the cathedral through the East Fifty-first Street north transept entrance. Instead of joining the faithful already seated, she scurried past the baptistery and circled around toward the cluster of altars in the ambulatory, behind the celebrant, intent on attending Mass there. And then she screamed.

“Bingo!” said Angus.

“Wow! What a setta lungs! That dame belongs in the choir,” Cassie snickered.

Father Thomas, standing hopelessly at his pulpit, watched as the congregation flocked to the alcove behind him.

Propped like marionettes, in the third pew before the Blessed Virgin's altar, with blood oozing from their ravaged heads, the pair sat inert. Their lifeless eyes stared vacantly at the stained-glass window of Saint Michael spearing the dragon. Around their necks hung a heart cut from cardboard. On it, fingered in blood, was the inscription: “Ah, ah, unh.”

Cassie was the first to see it. She had been channel surfing, heading for
Judge Judy
, when it suddenly appeared. There, in Sony Trinitron color, was the face. Not an exact likeness, but close enough. They had laughed off the photo of her and Angus as kids, and their Claxonn name had stayed on the reservation. Their first names, Angus and Cassie, listed in the full article posed a slight threat, but as Angus said, “Who the hell in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, is gonna give a damn about a spree of killings in New York?” But what she saw on the TV screen now was a whole other story. How the hell did they do that?

“Angus!” she screamed. “We're dead meat! Get the hell in here!”

“Wassamatta?” her brother said as he ambled out of the bathroom, naked and dripping wet.

“Ssssh! You'll wanna hear this.”

“What the…” he muttered, his eyes staring now at the tube. The newscaster's face was center screen. But there, in the upper right corner, was one that resembled his. “How'd they do that?”

“Ssssh! Listen!”

“Are they shittin' me?” Angus said as his near likeness once again filled the screen. “How the hell did they get that picture?”

“Angus, we gotta get outta here!” said Cassie.

“How long they have that?”

“I dunno. They say it's in all the papers.”

“A million dollars is gonna make for a lot more readers. Holy shit! We coulda been spotted in New York! At the freakin' aquarium! Or. Holy, holy shit! At the goddamn church!”

“What are we gonna do?”

“Give me a minute to think, will ya? Just need a minute to think.” He raced from one end of the trailer to the other, rummaging from drawer to drawer, collecting what he was after: a pair of scissors, a disposable razor, and a can of Gillette Foamy. Suddenly, he stopped and turned to face his sister. “I've got an idea.”