“Who are those men standing behind you?”
“Two officers with the Atlantic City Police Department.”
“Do they have names?”
“Why is that important?”
“I just like to know who I’m letting into my home.”
Hollis was stalling. Inside the house, Iron Butterfly’s psychedelic rock song In-a-gadda-da-vida was playing loudly on a stereo, and sweet incense was burning. Every serial killer had a ritual, and Valentine guessed that Hollis’s ritual was to recreate The Summer of Love.
“Mona’s in the house,” he blurted out.
Hollis’s eyes grew wide. Fuller jerked the screen door open, and he and Romero rushed in. They pinned Hollis to a wall in the foyer, and ordered him not to move.
“You’re under arrest,” Fuller told him.
Fuller read Hollis his rights, while Romero cuffed their suspect. Valentine and Banko followed them inside. Seeing Valentine, Hollis suddenly looked afraid.
“Valentine,” he muttered.
“Where is she?” Valentine said.
Hollis said nothing. The interior of the house was chilly, yet Hollis was sweating. Most old houses on the island had faulty heating, and he guessed Mona was either in the basement, or the attic. He decided to give Hollis a chance to come clean.
“You left a thumb tip in the glove compartment of your car,” Valentine said. “A hooker you picked up last week saw it. The game’s over. We know who you are.”
Hollis looked baffled. Then, his shoulders sagged.
“Fuck me,” he muttered.
“Is Mona still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Take us to her.”
“Okay.”
Hollis stepped down into the living room with the two FBI agents behind him. Their suspect dropped his arms, and there was a harsh popping sound as he dislocated his wrists. The handcuffs slid free and hit the floor. Reaching into his shorts, he extracted a can of pepper spray, and spun around.
“Fuckers!”
The pepper spray hit Fuller first, then Romero and Banko. It gave Valentine enough time to raise his forearm, and partially protect his face. His eyes filled with tears, and he watched helplessly as Hollis kicked Banko viciously in the groin, then shoved the FBI agents into each other, and sent them to the floor.
Then, Hollis turned on Valentine.
“Ready to rumble, Tony?” he screamed.
Hollis had turned into a raving psychopath in the blink of an eye. He grabbed a metal lamp off a table and smacked Valentine in the side of the head, then hit him in the shoulders and arms. He was laughing now, and seemed to be enjoying himself.
Valentine hadn’t come here to die. He threw a lazy punch at his attacker’s face. Hollis ducked the blow, but not the elbow that came with it. Boxers called it throwing a chicken wing, and it was the dirtiest trick Valentine knew.
Hollis’s head snapped back, and he hit the floor. Valentine got on top of him, and started throwing punches of his own. He would have continued had Banko not stepped in. “Jesus, Tony, you’ll kill him.”
“Is that so bad?”
“How did he slip the cuffs?”
“It’s a magic trick.”
Valentine grabbed Hollis by the collar and lifted his head. With his other hand, he pulled back one of his eyelids. Hollis was out cold.
“Damn it,” Valentine said.
It took Fuller and Romero a few moments to pull themselves together. When they had, and Hollis was under their control, Valentine and Banko ran through the house, checking the rooms as well as the basement and attic. There was no sign of Mona.
“The garage,” Valentine said.
The garage was a separate structure that stood behind the house. Banko opened the sliding door, and Valentine found a light and turned it on. A florescent bulb lit up the interior, revealing a white AT&T van with a ladder perched on the roof. Valentine grabbed the handle on the van’s rear door and jerked it open. Empty.
“Jesus,” Banko swore. “Look at this.”
Banko faced a wall lined with dozens of apothecary jars. From each jar stared out a pair of helpless eyes. Squirrels and rabbits and cats were swimming lifelessly in formaldehyde. Some people collected stamps. Hollis collected dead animals.
They returned to the house. Every room had been ice cold. So why was Hollis sweating? Valentine took another walk through the downstairs. The rooms were laid out in a circular design. If it was a circle, then where was its
