He shrugged. “Not for the first time. They’ll have to get in line.”
I was impressed by his understated courage. “What happened at the FBI press conference?”
“Nothing much. They didn’t release the dead man’s name-they say they’re contacting the family. They seemed pretty sure the occult killer got him. There’s some evidence linking the victim to the others, but they didn’t give details.”
I stood up.
“What are you going to do, Matt?” Joe asked apprehensively.
I smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ve kicked enough kneecaps for one day.”
That didn’t seem to reassure him much. “They’ll really be after you now,” he said.
“Give me the Woodbridge Holdings address, will you?”
Joe tore out a page from his notebook and scribbled some words, then handed it over. “Don’t do anything rash, Matt.”
I laughed. “What, like stand outside shouting ‘Give me back my memory’?”
“That would fit the bill.”
I squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t worry, my friend. I’ll be careful. I’ve got Karen to worry about.”
I felt his eyes on me as I headed for the door.
Chief of Detectives Rodney Owen was standing outside an apartment building in southeast Washington. Although the lights of Capitol Hill were under a mile away, the area wasn’t much of a picture. Apartments were gradually being taken by yuppie types, but the recession had made things hard for them and many of the buildings were still occupied by people with little to their names. Uniformed officers had strung barrier tape around the entrance and were keeping the curious at bay.
Clem Simmons arrived and saw the chief immediately. He sighed in relief when he saw no sign of Peter Sebastian or Dana Maltravers.
Owen came over. “I broke the speed limit.”
“I was wondering,” Simmons replied.
“Yeah, well, I want this case. Till we’re sure it’s the same killer, it’s definitely ours. That asshole Sebastian can kiss my ass.”
Simmons smiled. If he’d been a nervous man, he’d have felt bad about the meeting with Matt Wells and Joe Greenbaum, but that didn’t bother him. He reckoned they were reliable. Whether this murder was in the series or not, law enforcement needed all the help it could get.
A taxi pulled up and disgorged Pinker, without his false mustache.
“Cool threads,” one of the uniformed officers said, provoking a scowl from the detective.
Owen grinned. “Sure you aren’t overdressed, Vers? I hear it’s pretty messy up there.”
“Do my brother good to get the real world’s substances on his clothes.” He accepted overshoes and gloves from his partner. “What do we know?”
Owen glanced at his notebook. “Patrolmen were called by a neighbor who heard a scream from the vic’s apartment on the top floor. He looked through his peephole and saw a figure in a hooded jacket come down the stairs-didn’t see the face. The call was logged at 8:26 p.m. Our heroic citizen stayed behind his locked door. He says he didn’t look down at the street.”
“Can’t blame him for prioritizing his own skin,” Simmons said. “You ready?”
Pinker nodded. The pair headed into the building.
“Check out the buzzer panel,” Owen called. “Second button from the top.”
“Crystal Vileda,” Pinker read. “Diviner.” He looked at his partner. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Means she read the future,” Simmons said, walking into a hallway that had once been elegant but was now very shabby.
“Oh, yeah? Unless she had a death wish, she couldn’t have been much good.”
Clem Simmons shook his head. Sometimes he found Vers too much.
A CSI was working at the elevator, so they walked up to the fourth floor. The house was narrow, one apartment per level. The door at the top was open, another technician dusting the panels for prints. They went inside, stepping around a CSI who was on her knees, examining the rug.
“Gentlemen,” said Dr. Marian Gilbert, stepping back from a large armchair. Her face was flushed. “I was wondering where you’d got to.”
“Jesus,” Pinker said involuntarily.
The detectives took in the naked body sprawled across the chair, arms wide and legs sprawling. The woman was white, though olive-skinned. She looked to be in her thirties and was in good physical condition. Pinker was reminded of poses taken by women in porn movies-except they didn’t usually have chopsticks projecting from their nostrils.
“Quite,” the M.E. said, glancing at the police photographer. “Are you done?”
The man nodded and stepped back.
“What do you see, Doc?” Simmons asked. He was trying to resist the temptation to throw his coat over the victim-he felt ashamed to be looking at her in such an exposed state.
“I see a very unusual cadaver,” Marion Gilbert replied. “I-”
“Are those chopsticks?” Pinker interrupted.
She nodded.
“Are they the cause of death?” Simmons asked.
“I don’t see any other.” She pointed to broken skin on the left temple. “I doubt that blow would have done more than knock her out briefly. Assuming the chopsticks penetrated the brain, they would certainly have caused major trauma. I think they’re ivory, which is strong enough to do the job. I suspect they were sharpened to ease penetration.”
Pinker groaned. “Thanks for that, Doc.” He looked at his partner. “Two murder weapons like the others…but not skewers.”
Clem Simmons nodded. “And no paper with drawings on it. We need to turn her over.”
Marion Gilbert nodded to her assistants and they slowly turned the victim onto her front, keeping her face off the chair.
“No diagram there, either,” Pinker said, exhaling rapidly. “With the change in murder weapons, that gives us a chance of keeping the case.”
The M.E. looked at him and then shook her head. “I rather doubt that, Detective.” She pointed to the table at the far end of the room.
The two men went over. There was a pile of cards at one corner. They were larger than the ordinary playing kind. In the center were three more, arranged in a row, and next to them, in a clear plastic sheath, was a piece of paper. An array of squares and rectangles had been drawn on it in black ink.
“Shit,” said Pinker. “More squares and rectangles.”
“I’m guessing the killer didn’t waste time attaching this to the vic after she screamed,” Simmons said. He bent closer and took in the tarot cards. “Death, the Devil and the Seven of Swords.”
Gerard Pinker squinted at the garishly colored and grotesque illustrations. “You know what they mean, Clem?”
“Not really,” his partner said. “The Devil and Death are obvious enough.”
“Actually, they aren’t.”
The men turned to find that Dr. Gilbert had joined them.
“Tarot is a hobby of mine,” she said, smiling briefly. “The Devil may appear to fit the pattern of the occult murders, but the card actually has more to do with the subject being bound by fear and temptation, by material things or addictive behavior. Negative thinking is in there, too.”
“There’s nothing more negative than being murdered,” Pinker interposed.
The M.E. shook her head. “No, that isn’t it. I think this shows that the killer is rather ignorant of the tarot.” She paused. “Assuming it was the killer who arranged the cards, of course. The victim might have laid them out before her death.”
Simmons was watching the M.E. curiously. “What about the other cards?”
