The noise didn’t recur, and it looked like it might have been the remainder of the stack of envelopes that had fallen from the counter. Listening carefully, there were no signs that we weren’t alone; the house was completely silent.
The kitchen opened up into another short hallway where a door led into a half bath, and across from that was another door, which was closed. The bathroom was empty, but there were beads of water still in the sink.
The door across from it opened into a stairwell leading down to what looked like a small cellar or storage area. The smell of bleach was coming from somewhere down below.
I flipped the light switch and a light flickered on at the base of the stairs. The stairs creaked as we headed down and looked around. It was a small area, but it had been converted into some kind of hobbyist’s machine shop. There was a workbench covered in tools and a bunch of small mechanical parts I couldn’t identify. The walls were lined with shelves, which were stacked with uniform containers of screws, washers, nuts, and wire. The bleach fumes were strong enough to make me breathe through the fabric of my sleeve.
“Dasalia,” Shanks said, nudging me. A foot wearing a slipper was sticking out from behind the bench. I holstered my gun and moved around to the other side of the work area, where a man’s body lay sprawled on its back. He was an older man, dressed in casual clothes. It looked like there had been a struggle—the floor around him was scattered with tools, and a cardboard box had fallen down, partially covering his head.
The end result was the same, though; the killer had overpowered him and landed his signature blow. A deep puncture wound gaped from the middle of his chest. Clear liquid had been splashed across the floor a few feet away over by the workbench, where a plastic jug of bleach lay open on its side.
“Damn it,” I muttered. Shanks spoke into the radio.
“We’re too late,” he said. “Craig’s here. He’s already dead. Get CSI down here.”
“On their way.”
“How the hell did he beat them here?” I asked. It was impossible. We’d called the locals from the road. If he’d flown, he couldn’t have beaten them.
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t surprise this one,” I said. I moved the cardboard box aside and saw his eyes were wide open. The man’s right forearm was bruised in a pattern that looked like it had been gripped tightly, and there was a gash on the wrist above it, in the center of a swollen knot. Shanks knelt down and fished out his ID.
“Harold Craig,” he said. “It’s our guy.”
Looking around the room, I could see there was no other way out except the way we had come down.
“He had some idea about what was happening,” I said. “On the messenger he asked, ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ Who’s ‘us’?”
“Are you asking me?”
“He seemed to think the killer knew something about him. He knew the killer knew that he’d seen him. Why didn’t he call the police? If not for his friend, then why not for himself?”
“Maybe he figured he was safe way the hell out here.”
“The chair upstairs was pushed away from the computer like he moved in a hurry, like he was surprised. The study door is between the front door and the kitchen, where the struggle took place. So the killer came in through the front and startled him, then chased him into the kitchen. After what he must have seen, he just sat there at the computer and waited?”
“Maybe he didn’t,” Shanks said. “Maybe it happened sooner.”
“It would take forty minutes to get here.”
Could that be? Could the reason Harold Craig hadn’t called the police after witnessing the crime at Valle’s apartment be because he didn’t have time? Because he was attacked shortly afterward himself?
The fumes were making me light- headed. For all I knew, the bleach had combined with some other chemical down there and had created some kind of toxic gas. Why did he come down into the one place he had to have known there was no way out of?
They struggled in the kitchen, and he came down into the basement. The killer overtook him again at the workbench and they struggled. There was a wound on the side of Craig’s wrist that looked like it was from an impact, like it had been smashed against something….
“A gun,” I said.
“What?”
“He kept a gun down here; that’s why he came down here.”
He managed to get it too. The killer closed the distance and grabbed him. He smashed his wrist against the workbench, forcing him to drop it. Had he gotten a shot off?
Yes. That’s what the bleach was for. It hadn’t just fallen over; the killer dumped it out. He did that to compromise any sample of his blood that might be collected.
“He shot him.”
Using the ALS light, I adjusted the beam’s spectrum and scanned the area around the body, then over near the workbench. There was nothing on the walls or ceiling, and nothing on the surface of the bench. The bullet, if there was one, must have gotten lodged inside its target.
“Come on,” Shanks said. “Let’s get forensics in here.”
“Hold on.”
Kneeling down and shining the light up under the bench, I could see a spatter there. He had been hit. I scraped off a small sample.
“Come on, before we both pass out.”
If he had any kind of record, it would identify him. Even if he didn’t, we’d have his entire genome. After six crime scenes and not one hair, not one speck of saliva or sweat, not one thing that could be used as a reliable identification, he left behind the most damning thing he possibly could have.
The room spun for a second, and I grabbed the leg of the workbench until it passed.
“Faye, CSI will take care of this. Come on.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re not. Call it in.”
Was my inner voice taunting me now?
I called it in.
6
Syndrome
Nico Wachalowski—FBI Home Office
