Ripper (41 page)

Luna died bucking him off.

And the would-be rescuers slammed the door, stuffing Devlin's towel under it to keep the snakes inside.

A woman who fucks in a horror movie always ends up dead. Horror's consistent subtext is
Don't mess around, you tramps.
If Bolt were alive on this side of the door, not dead behind, he'd be horrified that fate had befallen a man.
So ends his harassment of Alex,
thought Zinc.
Leaving Devlin the only suspect still in the frame.

Go for him.

Hunt, Franklen, and Yates comforted Katt in Zinc's room. Through the half-open door she sobbed, "Mom . . . Mom . . . Mom." Listening to her, anger twisted inside Zinc like a snake, tightening his muscles and poisoning his blood. Behind the square indent in his brow, the rhythmic hammering of a migraine began.

Tick . . .

        Tock . . .

Tick . . .

        Tock . . .

Time was running out.

How long until the inevitable seizure gripped him?

Tick . . .

        Tock . . .

Tick . . .

        Tock . . .

The Dilantin level in his blood thinned, draining with every heartbeat until the levee holding back his epilepsy broke, at which time he'd be of no use to them or himself.

Push it away,
he thought.

Chandler, Melburn, and Devlin stood grouped in the corridor, three disheveled men contemplating a hissing door. Devlin gripped the handle to brace it shut, his sweaty skin goosebumped from the cold. Chandler and Melburn were caked with sand from God's toilet, and soaked with snow and sweat from their roll around the punji stake pit. Time for a Turkish bath.

"From fifteen to seven in half a day," Zinc said. "At this rate we'll all be dead before the sun goes down."

"Seven?" Devlin frowned.

"The cliff got Quirk. The beach got Holyoak. The path through the woods damn near got me. If the snakes in there get loose, they'll get the rest of us. The lock's smashed. The jamb's splintered. So rig something to secure the door. I need to speak to Katt. Then let's have a steam."

"Bad idea," Melburn said. "The perfect trap. Wedge the door, crank up the heat, and we're dim sum. Ever hear crabs scream in boiling water?"

"That's their shells," Devlin said. "Besides, I checked it out."

Melburn's look said
That's what worries me.

Flanked by Hunt and Franklen, Katt sat on Zinc's bed facing Yates who straddled the chair used to bar the door. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she bit her trembling lower lip. When Zinc walked in, Katt removed the Tarot card from her hat and tore Death into pieces. "There," she choked.

Alex put her arm around the grieving teen. "I know how you feel, Katt. My dad died last week. Easy to say, hard to do, but you've got to be strong. We're in this together. We can't fall apart. It's too dangerous to let down our guard."

"I'm t-t-terrified," Katt stuttered. "I'm not b-b-brave like you. The whole p-punk thing. It's just a front."

"We're
all
afraid," Wynn said. "We're just afraid to show it. Let me tell you what happened to me a few years back. Venice is a city frozen in the fourteen hundreds. Built on a hundred islands and stilts sinking into a lagoon, there are no roads, no modern buildings, just bridges and canals. Piazza San Marco is the most beautiful square, where by the Palace of the Doges stands the Campanile. The Campanile's a red brick tower three hundred-odd feet high, that looks like a spire separated from its church. The tower fell down around nineteen hundred and was rebuilt, at which time the only stairs were usurped for an elevator. I got trapped at the top when a major Italian earthquake hit."

Katt wiped her tears. "Bet that was scary?"

"Crack, crack, crack,"
—
Wynn leaned left—"the tower lurched like a whip. Then
crack, crack, crack,"
—
he leaned right—"came the backlash.
Crack, crack, crack
. . .
Crack, crack, crack
. . ." Wynn was a metronome. "The cracking was the sound of mortar breaking from the bricks, and I saw myself crushed under rubble if the Campanile tumbled down. I wanted to panic. I wanted to wail. I wanted to pull the hair I had then out by the roots. But I couldn't."

Katt blinked, squeezing out the last of her tears.
You sly dog,
Zinc thought, as Wynn paused for effect. "Why?" Katt asked. Hook, line, and sinker.

"I was the only American trapped at the top. The guy beside me was German, the guy beside him was Greek, then British, Spanish, Japanese, Israeli, and so on. If I broke and we all survived, they'd tell their countrymen the Yank broke first. Each of us was caught in the same bind. We wanted to piss our pants, but couldn't let the flag down by pissing first."

Katt smiled. A moment free from sorrow.

"The truth is I'm as scared as you," Wynn said. "But if I break, when we survive—and we
will
survive, Katt—you'll tell your friends the fossil broke first."

"You're not a fossil," she said, erasing the tracks of her tears.

"And you're not going to let anyone say the kid pissed first. You got no place to live, you can live with me."

"Katt," Zinc said. "I need your help. I know who the killer is, but the puzzle's missing a piece. This question was for your mom. Can you answer it? What's the occult significance of gallows nails?"

"They're used in rituals to conjure demons," she replied.

Locked Room

10:05
A.M.

Chandler saw it like this.

The Deadman's Island killer had to be one of the sleuths. Hanging Leuthard in the stairwell proved that. Within seconds of the blackout, he was noosed. Even with high-tech equipment—someone wearing night-vision goggles perhaps—there wasn't time for an interloper to run up or down the stairs to infiltrate the group. His death could be suicide, but why go to the trouble of building the gallows and inviting the guests, if all he planned to do was top himself in the dark? And there were the subsequent murders.

If the killer was on the stairs, that eliminated Yates and Quirk. They were in the Banquet Room when Leuthard was hanged.

Was it possible the killer was a
dead
sleuth? If so, it had to be someone who died after Quirk, for the witnesses to the fight on the bluff were adamant he was pushed. Assuming suicide claimed the killer, leaving an island of unsprung traps to finish off the survivors posthumously, Death was Holyoak, Bolt, or Darke. Holyoak was in the Banquet Room with Yates, Franklen, Katt, and Melburn when Quirk was pushed. Bolt and Darke had sent Katt downstairs. While it was possible one of them slipped out to shove Quirk with the other's blessing, would you kill yourself
in flagrante delicto
with poisonous snakes!

Forget it being one of the dead.

As he descended the stairs to the Billiards Room for a Turkish bath, Zinc brought Franklen's guestlist up to date:

Lou Bolt

Zinc Chandler

Sol Cohen

Luna Darke
Katt Darke

Glen Devlin

Elvira Franklen

Stanley Holyoak

Alexis Hunt

Al Leech

Pete Leuthard

Barney Melburn

Adrian Quirk

Colby Smith

Wynn Yates

If this were a sleight-of-hand mystery instead of real life, a fair but dirty trick would be to make the killer Zinc. Shot in the head and left to cope with a brain injury, our hero splits into Jekyll & Hyde with neither personality aware the other exists. Zinc the Killer, off the Force with nothing to do, creates a mystery puzzle so Zinc the Cop can shine.

But this was reality.

And Zinc believed in himself.

Which left Yates, Melburn, Franklen, Hunt, Katt, and Devlin as suspects.

Eliminate Yates, Melburn, Franklen, and Katt. They were together in the Banquet Room when Quirk was attacked. Melburn and Katt met Alex in the Hall as they rushed
outside, eliminating her, for the killer had insufficient time
to
return to the house. That left Devlin as the only viable
suspect.

What was the case against him?

According to Elvira's thumbnail sketch in the cab, Devlin had sold a not-yet-published high-tech thriller. A wannabe Michael Crichton or Tom Clancy had the mind for mechanical mayhem. Devlin and Melburn had carried the missing trunk up from the cove. If it hid something important, the killer would guard it. Devlin was muscular and quick, helpful traits for cocking the crossbow and setting that trap. He was on the stairs when Leuthard was hanged. He saw the eye in the peephole which lured Smith to his scythe-through-the-skull death. Did he respond with a near scythe miss to avert suspicion?

But most damning was Quirk.

The disabled man had seen Devlin collecting nails from the stairwell gallows in the middle of the night. Katt said gallows nails were used to conjure demons, and here they were trapped in the madhouse of a bygone Satanist, with a demonic idol in the Ballroom below. Zinc recalled Luna's comments on the trek up from the cove:

"Angus Craig II inherited it all. He spent time with Aleister Crowley in Sicily, then gathered his own disciples: the Demoniacs. They gathered on Deadman's Island each year to celebrate Samhain, the most important night in the Witches' Calendar, the night when the veil between the spirit and physical worlds is lifted, the night when the dead return to consort with the living . . .

"Craig II had one son, Philip Craig. When Philip inherited the estate on his father's death, the will stipulated he couldn't sell or alter Castle Crag. Philip converted to fundamental Calvinism that year, and never again set foot on blasphemous Deadman's Island . . ."

"Who inherited the estate from Philip Craig?"

"Philip's kid. If he had one, I guess . . ."

Was that Glen Devlin?

He'd be the right age.

An heir with time and ownership to set this hell-house up, and money enough to outbid all rivals for the Mystery Weekend, using Elvira as a front to lure his victims here.

For what?

To sacrifice them to Granddad's occult gods?

As Zinc walked down the corridor to the Billiards Room, he worked the final piece of the puzzle into place. Alex was in his room when he left the house with Quirk. Bolt and Darke were on the four-poster. Yates, Melburn, Franklen, Katt, and Holyoak were in the Banquet Room. Devlin slipped out of the house with a portable transmitter, branching off the path to the cove to run through the precipice woods. Broadcasting screams from the speaker to divert Zinc, he crossed the punji stake pit to prime that trap, ascending the crest up the far side to give Quirk a push. The disabled man went over the cliff and Devlin descended the switchback to the beach, a Pied Piper leading those behind toward God's toilet.

But Devlin wasn't on the beach when they got down.

Which meant there had to be another route up to the house.

A route by which he returned to the castle before they did.

Zinc entered the Billiards Room.

The showdown by the Turkish bath was politically incorrect. Though not swilling brandy and smoking cigars, those present for this bare-balls walkdown were just the men. Wyatt Chandler at this end, Glpn Clanton at that end of the OK Corral. The women, though not in the Drawing Room
(Withdrawing
Room actually), were upstairs comforting Katt in her grief.

"You're the only one without an alibi for Quirk, Devlin. Where were you when he was pushed off the cliff?"

"The cellar," Devlin said.

"Doing what?"

"Stoking the boiler for a steam."

"No one saw you."

"I was the first one up. Downstairs was deserted when I had breakfast and went to shovel coal. Coming up, I passed the door to the Banquet Room where Wynn and Elvira were staring out the window. He had his arm around her so I didn't intrude. I was in the bath when the screaming began. Running to help, I met you in the Hall. Satisfied?"

Still in their clothes, Melburn and Yates flanked the steam bath door. Devlin shed the new towel around his waist. Chandler shucked his uniform, then his underwear. "You're lying," he said.

"Prove it," Devlin challenged.

"You stoked the boiler, then came upstairs. That's when you saw me wheel Quirk outside, and play into your hands by ascending the bluff. You snuck out, diverted me, and pushed him over the cliff. Hiding somewhere on the beach, you saw Holyoak die, before taking an alternate route back to the house. You primed the trap—a timing device?—that killed Darke and Bolt, then waited in the bath to see who returned from the beach. You knew the survivors, grubby from trying to save Holyoak, would gladly join you for your interrupted steam to clean up. My hunch is you planned the Turkish bath as your alibi so you could lure someone into the next booby trap."

Devlin laughed. "How would that work?" He walked around the bath, followed by Zinc. "No way in or out except

the wooden door. The structure's self-contained in the middle of the room. Anyone outside can see the space between its top and the ceiling. You steamed yesterday. See a trapdoor in the floor? If we had a tape measure, bet we'd find the walls no more than eight inches thick. The bath's a sealed box with a door, a steampipe, and a drain. How the luck you think I'd use it as a trap?"

"Break the steam valve, seal the door, and anyone caught inside scalds to death."

Head cocked and mouth curled in an arrogant smirk, Devlin stopped the walkdown by going for his gun. "I wasn't through sweating when the screams brought me out. Melburn and Yates can guard the door to save you if there's trouble. Unless you're afraid, join me for a steam."

Devlin pulled the door open and disappeared inside.

The door swung closed as Zinc turned to the guards. "I know this guy's the killer," he whispered, "so let's smoke him out. Listen for anything strange and ask me a question now and—"

A strangled gargle came from the bath.

The sort of sound you make when you're throwing up.