Stirred (6 page)

Marquette set the paper aside and worked his way between stacks of books and papers and prehistoric correspondence, some of which bore postmarks from the previous decade. But the disorganization didn’t bother him. He thrived in chaos. As he moved toward the door, his only thought was how much he was looking forward to locating whatever website this William Blake scholar had used to purchase her term paper. Maybe he’d surprise her with a rigorous oral exam on her two dozen sources next class.

Watch her twist and blush and stutter.

You had to make an example out of cheaters.

A painful, public, humiliating example.

Marquette opened the door to a man with long, black hair tied up in a ponytail, who sported a black blazer over blue jeans. Black cowboy boots completed his unusual costume.

“May I help you?” he asked.

“Professor Marquette?”

“That’s right.”

The man extended his hand.

“Rob Siders from Ancient Publishing. I e-mailed you last week regarding our interest in publishing your work on Dante.”

Marquette smiled as he shook the man’s hand.

“Of course. Yes. I’m sorry. You mentioned you’d be stopping by, didn’t you? Please, come in.”

Marquette ushered him inside and closed the door after them.

He lifted the stack of his embattled TA’s student reviews off a chair, said, “Have a seat. I apologize for the mess, but there is actually a system in place here, as unlikely as it may appear.”

When they were finally sitting across from each other at the desk, Marquette said, “May I offer you a cup of coffee or tea or water? I could probably wrangle something up in the faculty lounge.”

“No, I’m fine, thanks. It’s a great honor to meet you, Dr. Marquette.”

“Please, Reggie.”

“Your work is amazing, Reggie.”

Marquette puffed his chest up. “Oh, thank you.”

“Busy morning?”

“Just catching up on some grading for my eighteenth-century English lit class. I have to say, your e-mail was intriguing, but would you mind telling me a little more about you and your company? I couldn’t find much information on the Internet.”

“We’re a boutique publisher of academic work of the highest quality. I’m the editorial director and co-founder, and I’ve been searching for someone like you for quite a while.”

“What do you mean, ‘someone like me’?”

“A true scholar who can bring
The Divine Comedy
to twenty-first-century readers like it’s never been presented before.”

“Wait…you’re talking about a translation? Didn’t Pinsky already knock that out of the park back in—”

“I’m not talking about another inaccessible translation. I’m talking about an adaptation.”

Marquette straightened in his chair. “I’m not following.”

“We’re looking for something written in modern language. Possibly even using modern historical figures.”

Marquette laughed. “You mean like putting Bill Clinton in the second circle?”

“Exactly. And Bernie Madoff in the eighth, and so on.”

“Who’s in the ninth?”

“I have no idea. That’s where you would come in with your vast knowledge of the mood and intent of the original text. We want a book that can communicate to present-day American masses, just as Dante’s masterpiece reached his Italian countrymen back in the fourteenth century.”

Marquette felt a shudder of excitement.

An adaptation for the masses could mean recognition. Serious recognition, beyond the handful of academics who subscribed to the same six scholarly journals.

And he did have a sabbatical scheduled for the fall term.

“Of course, you don’t have to decide right now,” Siders said, rising from his chair, buttoning his blazer. “Are you free for lunch? I can lay it all out for you. We are offering a sizeable advance.”

Marquette leaned back in his chair and scratched under his chin at the salt-and-pepper goatee. His wife, an economics professor at Northwestern, did have a midday mixer for her department faculty that he had kind of promised to attend, but the last thing he wanted to do was spend several hours mingling with a bunch of accountants dressed up like teachers.

“That’d be lovely,” he said.

The pale man smiled. “Perfect. And I brought the company credit card, so lunch is on me.”

March 31, Noon

H
ome was a house in a secluded, woodsy area in the western suburb of Bensenville. I moved there with my mother a while back, but my mom had since gone on to a Florida retirement community (where, according to a phone call from her last week, she had to buy a new mattress because she wore the other one out with sexual escapades). Now I lived there with Phin, an ill-tempered cat named Mr. Friskers, and a basset hound named Duffy who was a gift from a friend also named Duffy.

Phin pulled into the driveway and hit the unlock code for the garage door. When he parked inside, I entered the disarm code for one of our three burglar alarms. I walked into the house, disarmed the second alarm, and patted the third one on the head. As usual, Duffy was barking his head off, and truth be told, I trusted him more than I trusted the electronic systems. Though he only weighed about eighty pounds, his bark was loud and deep, and sounded like it sprang from a giant Rottweiler.

Duffy gave my hand a lick, his tail wagging furiously. With his stunted legs and sagging belly, he looked like someone had stepped on a very fat beagle. Duffy the guy had dropped Duffy the dog over at my place a few months ago when he caught wind of my current situation with Luther Kite. I’d grown quite fond of the hound, who liked to sing whenever I took a shower, and he was the only creature on the planet that Mr. Friskers seemed to tolerate.

Phin locked up behind me, and I waddled into my office, kicked off my shoes, and plopped my fat ass into my computer chair. I was exhausted and hungry. But before I could rest or eat, I had some work to do.

First item on the agenda was calling Duffy the guy—
Duffy Dombrowski
. I met him some time ago on a trip to New York. He was a counselor who moonlighted as a pro boxer, and I guessed he might have had a crush on me. Or vice-versa.

He answered on the third ring. “Yeah?”

“Duff, Jack Daniels.”

“Hey, Jack. How’s stuff?”

“Stuff’s fine. I need you to take Duffy for a few weeks.”

“Everything okay?”

“I’m going to this pregnancy spa, and I don’t want to kennel him. I can give you some money for food.”

“You’ll do no such thing. And I’d be happy to take him for a while.”

“He eats his weight in dog food every five hours.”

“That little? You trying to starve him to death?”

I smiled. “I can ship him to you. You still living in that trailer?”

“Chateau Dombrowski is still my summer home. In winter, I’ve got a Swiss chalet.”

“You can’t even spell
chalet
.”

“I can’t even spell
Swiss
. When can I expect the beast?”

“I’ll text you.”

“Looking forward. Everything else, uh, okay?”

“Fine,” I lied. “With you?”

“Life’s a banquet, and I’ve got forks for hands.”

“Thanks, Duff. I owe you one.”

I hung up, then started up Firefox and logged onto the NCIC. The National Crime Information Center was a database maintained by the Feds. Since jurisdictions were local, a cop in Milwaukee had no way of knowing that the killer he was after had the same MO as one in Boston. But if both precincts filled out NCIC reports and uploaded them to the server, then bad guys who crossed state lines could have their movements tracked.

With Duffy sitting under my desk, drooling on my bare feet, I accessed the NCIC data on Andrew Z. Thomas.

While it printed, I refreshed myself on Luther Kite. As I remembered, there was nothing solid. His sister was abducted at a young age and never found. His parents had been killed several years ago. According to NCIC, he was wanted for questioning or warrants in connection with the following:

November 7, 1996 shooting at Ricki’s Bar in Scottsbluff, Nebraska

October 27, 2003 murder of Worthington Family in Davidson, NC

October 27, 2003 abduction of Beth Lancing in Davidson, NC

October 28, 2003 murder of Daniel Ortega in Wal-Mart, Rocky Mount, NC

October 28, 2003 murder of Karen Prescott on Bodie Island, NC

Undated murders connected to numerous bodies uncovered in the basement of the Kite residence on Ocracoke Island on November 14, 2003

November 11, 2003 or thereabouts murder of Sgt. Barry Mullins and Max King

November 11, 2003 murder of Beth Lancing and Charlie and Margaret Tatum

November 12, 2003 Kinnakeet Ferry Massacre

Plus the arrest warrant for the murder of August 10, 2010, with which I was intimately familiar.

Thomas’s data was even slimmer.

October 30, 1996 murder of Jeanette Thomas, his mother

Disappearance of Walter Lancing in early November, 1996

Heart Surgeon Murders, including boxes left at Ellipse in Washington, DC, and the bodies unearthed on Thomas’s lakefront property on Lake Norman, NC, including schoolteacher Rita Jones

November 7, 1996 shooting at Ricki’s Bar in Scottsbluff, Nebraska

November 12, 2003 Kinnakeet Ferry Massacre

Disappearance of Davidson Police Department Homicide Detective
Violet King

Duffy the dog fell asleep on my feet, snoring like a chainsaw. I chewed my lower lip, mulling over the data. The connection between the two was the Ricki’s Bar shooting and the Kinnakeet Massacre. I was about to Google them both when I realized that someone, or many someones, might have already done the work for me.

I surfed over to Wikipedia and looked up Thomas, and as expected, user-aggregated content gave me more information than I could have found on my own in an hour of surfing.

Settling back in my chair, I began to read, learning more than I ever wanted to about the world’s most mysterious mystery writer.

March 31, 12:15 P.M.

“I
’ll drive,” Rob Siders said as they walked down the sidewalk away from Lewisohn Hall, toward a white Mercedes van with tinted windows, parked on the curb. “Any favorite spots?”

“There’s a great sushi place a couple miles up on State Street. Why don’t you follow me up there? That’d probably make more sense.”

“No, I’m staying down at the Blackstone. I’ve got to come back down this way anyhow.”

Siders disappeared around the front of the van, but Marquette hesitated for a moment on the sidewalk adjacent to the curb. It was stupid and irrational—he knew this—but there was still this voice in the back of his head asking why an editor from Ancient Publishing was driving around in what he and his wife had always laughingly referred to as “a serial killer ride.” A stark white cargo van, nondescript, and possibly filled with horrors.

Of course, that wasn’t the case, but still, some small part of him felt unnerved at the prospect of getting in.

The driver’s-side door slammed.

The engine roared to life.

Hell with it. Life is about taking chances.

He reached for the front passenger door, tugged it open.

As he climbed up into the seat, a strange smell wafted out of the back of the van—something astringent like Windex or ammonia.

“Buckle up for safety,” Siders said, glancing over at him and smiling.

Marquette pulled the harness across his chest and clicked in the buckle.

Siders shifted into drive, eased out into the street.

Marquette stared through the deeply tinted glass, watching as they passed groups of students lounging in Grant Park.

A typical spring day—wet and chilly. It was the first of April, the grass and the trees just beginning to pop with pale baby greens and yellows. He’d always loved this time of year.

Classes winding down.

The blessed summer just within reach.

“How long has Ancient Publishing been in business?” he asked.