While Galileo Preys (8 page)

He stared at her for a full thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of nothing but his eyes on hers. He was trying to peer into her soul. She could feel it. She was terrified of what he wouldn’t find.

After thirty seconds, he reached some kind of conclusion. “Okay,” he said.

Then she noticed the blood on his palms.

What the hell?

He noticed her noticing.

“It’s Darcy Parr’s,” he said. “He shot her a few hours ago at Walmart.”

Darcy Parr was dead? Jesus Christ. Wait—Walmart? Where had she seen…?

“The license plate of the guy you met tonight? It’s registered to a Pablo Marx out of Lubbock. Pablo Marx—”

“Wait…”

“Pablo Marx was reported missing ten days ago.”

“How do you know I—”

“How do you think?”

Lilly shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. Of course they would tail her. They knew she had an informant. Of course they would want to find out his identity.

“His name is Ray Milton,” she told him. “He’s a cop with the Amarillo Police Department.”

“Ms. Toro, all due respect, but I guarantee you the man you’ve been speaking to is neither named Ray Milton nor he has ever, ever, worked with the Amarillo P.D. We’re going to need you to come with us. Right now.”

Lilly nodded, reached for her coat. Her mind was spinning (and the lateness of the hour didn’t help).

“Am I going to look at mug shots?” she asked.

“No, Ms. Toro. You’re going to help us trap the son of a bitch.”

E
sme had three days to solve the case.

She solved it in nine hours.

While the rest of the task force was prepping Lilly Toro for the sting operation, Esme sequestered herself in a conference room, set her iPod to random selection, and through careful analysis of the case files and aggressive prodding of the FBI computer database, was able to deduce not only Galileo’s next likely target, but also his endgame.

This is how she did it:

Tom met her at the airport. The new lines on his long face weren’t just from age. It was obvious he hadn’t slept. Nevertheless, he put in the effort to smile.

“Esmeralda,” he said. “You look good.”

“So do you,” she lied. His left arm hung useless in a mauve sling. Oh, Tom.

They hugged, two old friends, and waited beside the baggage carousel for Esme’s two Louis Vuitton suitcases to emerge. Outside the bright Texas sun foretold a day luminescent with possibilities.

“Do you have any new photos of Sophie?” asked Tom. “She has to be, what, in grad school by now, right?”

Esme smirked. “Practically. Don’t worry, I’ve got a whole bunch of pictures in my digital camera. I’ll show them to you later.”

“Great.”

“How’s your family? Is your cousin still married to what’s-her-name with the Komodo dragon?”

“They’ve added a second pet to the household.”

“A unicorn?”

“A sea otter.”

“Oh, God.”

“It lives in their swimming pool in the backyard.”

“Of course it does.”

Her baggage arrived, intact and unblemished.

As they lugged it outside, Esme wondered how it all would fit on his Harley. To her surprise, a black sedan pulled to the curb and its trunk popped open. Behind the wheel sat 242 pounds of Norm Petrosky.

“The prodigal returns,” he said. Norm was one of the task force’s expert profilers.

Tom took the passenger seat and Esme sat in back. It felt odd to Esme, being chauffeured like that, but times had changed…

“How was your flight?” asked Norm.

“It didn’t crash.”

“Oh, well. Maybe next time.”

They accelerated onto the highway. Esme had never been to Amarillo. It looked modest, wholesome, which made what had happened here all the more insidious. Tom filled Esme in on Darcy Parr’s murder.

“You would have liked her,” he said. “She reminded me of you at her age.”

Then I probably wouldn’t have liked her, decided Esme.

By the time they pulled up to city hall, the perfect blue sky had faded to a tin hue. Esme followed the men into the building. By way of explanation, Tom told her that Mayor Lumley had
insisted
the task force operate out of city hall rather than out of the police department, as was customary in a city without its own federal field office.

“She wants our successes to be associated solely with her,” said Tom. “She sees this tragedy as her ticket to the state house.”

“If our killer knew he was responsible for that,” added Norm, “he’d turn himself in today.”

Their offices were limited to the second floor. They had an entire bullpen and its adjoining four offices to themselves. According to the signage, this area was regularly used by the Community Relations Office. The Community Relations Office workers had been displaced somewhere else. Perhaps to the police department.

Tom led Esme into the conference room. On the large cherrywood table—all the furniture in the entire building being made of 33-year-old cherry—were stacks and stacks of crime scene reports, lab analyses, evidentiary samples, etc. Almost the entire surface of the table was covered.

“Do you need anything? Juice? Danish?”

Esme shook her head.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

He closed the door.

She started with the shoe boxes. They were bright orange. The police had conscientiously stuffed each in a plastic bag. She picked up the one labeled Atlanta, placed it on her lap, and carefully removed its contents. Inside the box was the note Tom had e-mailed:

IF THERE WAS STILL A GOD, HE WOULD HAVE STOPPED ME.

—GALILEO

The paper was standard twenty-pound bond, the kind you’d find at any office supply store. No foolscap, no insignia. The typeface was standard too: Courier New. The list of possible suspects narrowed down to anyone who had access to a PC and a printer.

Great.

It was the contents of the note that were revelatory. Esme already had several nascent theories, but she needed more data. She put the first shoe box aside and grabbed the second one. This was the unknown. With anxious anticipation, she un-bagged the orange box and opened its lid.

Inside was a flash drive.

“Tom!” she called. “I need a computer!”

In the bullpen, the FBI task force was working what few leads they had. Norm was updating the psych profile, adding the latest murders to his mix of educated conjecture and professional supposition. Daryl Hewes handled logistics; thanks to his wizardry at obfuscation, the task force always covered its ass both fiscally and legally. Anna and Hector Jackson (no relation) were re
viewing for the sixth time the videotape from Walmart. Others were at the police station with Lilly Toro, getting her fitted for a bulletproof vest.

Tom was on the phone with Darcy Parr’s mother.

“Your daughter, Mrs. Parr, was a tremendous young woman.” He gazed out the tinted window. Amarillo city hall overlooked an oblong fountain. Right now the water appeared clear, and even from the second floor Tom could peer through its surface to its ceramic base, which was dotted with pennies. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Tom felt someone’s shadow on the back of his neck. He turned to look. It was Esme. She offered his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. He nodded. She walked over to Daryl.

“One minute,” he said. He typed up another clause on his laptop, perused it, deleted it, then gazed up at Esme through thick black glasses. “I’m just working on your per diem forms and your liability documents. You would think we’d have basic boilerplate language I could adjust to suit these circumstances but it seems the suits continue to lack any semblance of foresight.” He scratched at his curly blond pouf, retyped the clause he deleted, and gazed back up at Esme. “Was there something you needed in the interim?”

It took Daryl five minutes to work his magic and find Esme a laptop of her own, five more to link it into their network. She didn’t ask where he’d acquired the computer. She didn’t want to know. She just thanked him, signed his per diem and the liability documents, and then kindly asked him to close the door on his way out.

Then she plugged in the sniper’s flash drive. It contained one file. A movie. Two minutes and twenty-four seconds long.

She pressed Play.

First: a black screen. Underneath it: a scratching noise, the sound of a needle tracking across an old record. Esme upped the volume on the laptop.

White letters slowly bloomed to life out of the black backdrop:

Then, just as slowly, the letters faded back into the darkness. The scratching noise ceased. For a few seconds, silence, then:

Smash cut to MLK Drive. 3:00 a.m. Under a streetlight stand Andre Banks and the two cops, Appleby and Harper. All from the vantage point of the roof of the elementary school.

Suddenly there’s music.

Kate Smith, booming “God Bless America.” Esme jumped a bit, startled by the loud sound.

Kate’s Smith’s voice soars as—

Harper goes down.

Appleby goes down.

Andre Banks, panicking, tries for shelter behind the squad car.

The music continues.

Andre Banks goes down.

Smash cut now to an hour later. The local cops are swarming the scene. Pennington, O’Daye. Perry Roman. All ten of them familiar faces now, from the news reports, from what’s about to happen.

The first victim is Perry Roman. He drops down like a bag of cement.

The detectives search for their attacker, but it’s all in vain. They’ve already been snared, and marked for slaughter. One by one they collapse.

Officer O’Daye is the last one standing. She is struggling to pull her partner’s body out of the line of fire. She’s the last to die.

The music suddenly halts.

Cut to black.

Esme didn’t realize she was crying until the soundtrack stopped, and she heard sobs, and knew they were her own.

Around midday, Esme took a break from her work to call her neighbor Holly McKinley. Surely Holly had remembered to pick Sophie up from school, right? Esme flipped photographs of the Amarillo crime scene upside down and waited through one, two, three rings before Holly picked up.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite crime-fighter,” chirped
Holly, probably between swigs of Evian. “How is life down in the Lone Star State?”

“It’s okay. How’s the weather up there? I heard it was supposed to snow.”

They small-talked for a few minutes more, and finally Esme asked to speak with her daughter.

Holly hesitated.

“Oh…she can’t come to the phone right now…”

Esme swallowed hard. “Why’s that?” Her mind became flooded with images of Sophie stranded on the steps of the schoolhouse, Sophie in tears, Sophie all alone.

“Well, Esme, I’ll be honest. She’s covered in green paint.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s just finger-paint. She’s making you a card. Turns out I had finger-paint and construction paper in the closet from when Merideth was her age and, well, there you go. Don’t worry. I’m making sure she’s not eating any of the paint.”

“Holly, can you put her on speakerphone?”

“Speakerphone? What a novel idea. No wonder you’re such a VIP! One second.”

While Esme waited, there was a knock on the conference room door. It was Tom.

“I have the updated psych profile,” he said. “Thought you’d want to take a peek.”

“Sure. But just a peek. I’m underage.”

“Who’s underage?” warbled Holly from thousands of miles away. “Esme, you’re not doing anything worth gossiping about, are you?”

Tom went to exit but Esme signaled for him to stay.

“Holly, am I on speakerphone?”

“Hi, Mommy,” replied Sophie.

Esme’s face lit up. “Hi, baby! I hear you’ve been making me a card.”

“I was drawing the state of Texas in green paint.”

“Why green?”

“Because it’s your favorite color.”

So precious. She spotted Tom, still in the doorway. “I miss you, baby. You know that, right?”

“Sure, Mommy,” Sophie replied. She sounded so casual. “What are we having for dinner?”

“That’s up to your father.” Esme got an idea. “Tell him I said you should have macaroni and cheese.”

“But he hates macaroni and cheese.”

Yep. Rafe hated its creamy taste, its gooey texture, and, most of all, its cheesy aroma, which lingered for days. This would show him. Act like an ass? Deal with mac and cheese.

Esme told Sophie how much she loved her and kissed the air, pretending it was her. Then she hung up.

“Macaroni and cheese, huh?” Tom’s face was aglow with bemusement. “I think I ate that every day one summer. When I was six.”

They sat down at the table. Esme reviewed the profile Norm had typed up. It didn’t take long.

“The card should be back soon from the lab,” said Tom. He was referring to the Shoebox greeting which Galileo had left on Darcy’s body. Esme had already reviewed the missive scrawled inside: Don’t stare into the barrel of a gun.

“Fingerprints?”

Tom shook his head. “Not likely.” The killer was too cautious.

“Handwriting analysis?”

“Well, the way he dots his i’s proves he was abused by his mother.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Esme examined the crime scene photos. “He’s an atheist on a crusade. The irony alone just kills me.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“He’s angry at people of faith, but he’s not targeting pastors and priests. He’s targeting civil servants. He blames religion on the public authority. He’s just starting with cops and firefighters. Jesus, Tom, it’s an election year. That’s not happenstance. We need to alert the campaigns.”

“If all goes well tonight,” replied Tom, “we won’t need to.”