I had the uncomfortable feeling that Thomas Pierce was watching us, or that I might suddenly come upon him in the dense, sweltering crowds. I had my pager just in case he tried to contact us at the field office.
There was nothing else to be done right now. Pierce-Mr. Smith was in control of the situation and our lives. A madman was in control of the planet. It seemed like it anyway.
I stopped near Steeplechase Pier and the Resorts Casino Hotel. People were playing under a hot sun in the high, rolling surf. They seemed to be enjoying themselves and didn’t appear to have a care in the world. How nice for them.
This was the way it should be, and it reminded me of Jannie and Damon, my own family, and of Christine. She desperately wanted me to leave this job and I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t know if I could walk away from police work, though. I wondered why that was so. Physician, heal thyself. Maybe I would someday soon.
As I continued my walk along the boardwalk, I tried to convince myself that everything that could be done to catch Pierce was being done. I passed a Fralinger’s, and a James Candy store. And the old Peanut Shoppe, where a costumed Mr. Peanut was stumbling about in the mid-ninety-degree heat.
I had to smile as I saw the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum up ahead, where you could see a lock of George Washington’s hair, and a roulette table made of jelly beans. No, I could not believe it. I didn’t think anyone on the crisis team could, but here we were.
I was jolted out of my thoughts by the beeper vibrating against my leg. I ran to a nearby phone and called in.
Pierce had left another message. Kyle and Sampson were already out on the boardwalk. Pierce was near the Steel Pier. He claimed that Inez was with him! He said we could still save them!
Pierce specifically said them.
I shouldn’t have been running around like this. My side began to throb and hurt like hell. I’d never been out of shape like this, not in my life, and I didn’t like the feeling. I hadn’t felt so vulnerable and relatively helpless before.
Finally, I realized: I’m actually afraid of Pierce, and of Mr. Smith.
By the time I got near the Steel Pier, my clothes were dripping wet and I was breathing hard. I pulled off my sport shirt and waded out into the crowd barechested. I pushed my way past old-style jitneys and newer step vans, past tandem bikes and joggers.
I was taped and bandage and I must have looked like an escapee from a local ER. Even so, it was hard to stand out on a beach like the one at Atlantic City. An ice-cream man hauling a box on his shoulder cried out, “Hitch your tongue to a sleigh ride! Get your Fudgie Wudgies here!”
Was Thomas Pierce watching us and laughing? He could be the ice-cream man, or anyone else in this frenetic mob scene.
I cupped my hands over my eyes and looked up and down the beach. I spotted policeman and FBI agents moving into the crowd. There must have been at least fifty thousand sunbathers on the beach. I could faintly hear electronic bells from the slot machines in one of the nearby hotels.
Inez. Atlantic City. Jesus!
A madman on the loose near the famous Steel Pier.
I looked for Sampson or Kyle, but I didn’t see either of them. I searched for pierce, and for Inez, and for Mr. Smith.
I heard a loud voice, and it stopped me in my tracks. “This is the FBI.”
Chapter 118
THE VOICE boomed over a loudspeaker. Probably from one of the hotels, or maybe a police hookup. “This is the FBI,” Kyle Craig announced.
“Some of our agents are on the beach now. Cooperate with them and also with the Atlantic City police. Do whatever they ask. There’s no reason for undue concern. Please cooperate with police officers.”
The huge crowd became strangely quiet. Everyone was staring around, looking for the FBI. No, there was no reason for undue concern-not unless we actually found Pierce. Not unless we discovered Mr. Smith operating on somebody in the middle of this beach crowd.
I made my way toward the famous amusement pier, where as a young boy I had actually seen the famous diving horse. People were standing out in the low surf, just looking in toward shore. It reminded me of the movie Jaws.
Thomas Pierce was in control here.
A black Bell Jet Ranger hovered less than seventy yards from shore. A second helicopter came into view from the northeast. It swept in close to the first, then fluttered away in the direction of the Taj Mahal Hotel complex. I could make out sharpshooters positioned in the helicopters.
So could Pierce, and so could the people on the beach. I knew there were FBI marksmen in the nearby hotels. Pierce would know that. Pierce was FBI. He knew everything we did. That was his edge and he was using it against us. He was winning.
There was a disturbance up closer to the pier. People were pushing forward to see, while others were moving away as fast as they could. I moved forward.
The beach crowd’s noise level was building again. En Vogue played from somebody’s blaster. The smell of cotton candy and beer and hot dogs was thick in the air. I began to run toward the Steel Pier, remembering the diving horse and Lucy the Elephant from Margate, better times a long time ago.
I saw Sampson and Kyle up ahead.
They were bending over something. Oh God, Oh God, no. Inez, Atlantic City! My pulse raced out of control.
This was not good.
A dark-haired teenage girl was sobbing against an older man’s chest. Others gawked at the dead body, which had been clumsily wrapped in beach blankets. I couldn’t imagine how it had gotten here-but there it was.
Inez, Atlantic City. It had to be her.
The murdered woman had long bleach blond hair and looked to be in her early twenties. It was hard to tell now. Her skin was purplish and waxy. The eyes had flattened because of a loss of fluid. Her lips and nail beds were pale. He had operated on Inez: The ribs and cartilage had been cut away, exposing her lungs, esophagus, trachea, and heart.
Inez sounds like Isabella.
Pierce knew that.
He hadn’t taken out Inez’s heart.
The ovaries and fallopian tubes were neatly laid out beside the body. The tubes looked like a set of earrings and a necklace.
Suddenly, sunbathers were pointing to something out over the ocean.
I turned and I looked up, shading my eyes with one hand.
A prop plane was lazily making its way down the shoreline from the north. It was the kind of plane you rented for commercial messages. Most of the messages on forty-foot banners hyped the hotels, local bars, area restaurants, and casinos.
A banner waved behind the sputtering plane, which was getting closer and closer. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It was another message.
Mr. Smith is gone for now! Wave good-bye.
Chapter 119
EARLY THE next morning, I headed home to Washington. I needed to see the kids, needed to sleep in my own bed, to be far, far away from Thomas Pierce and his monstrous creation-Mr. Smith.
