Strip Search (24 page)

“I don’t suppose the FBI has a database of earprints.”

“Would that they did. But no. This will still be useful, though, to tie the suspect to this crime. If you catch him.”

If you catch him. If
you
catch him.

“Susan? You all right?”

I snapped myself out of it. “Sorry. I’m fine.”

“Well, actually…” She made sure no one was listening, then leaned in closer. “You’re not. Look, I know you’re going to want to work all night on this, but that won’t accomplish anything anyway. What say you and I go out tonight and party?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“One word: Chippendale’s.”

I gave her a long look. “Boy, it has been a long time since you’ve been out on a date.”

She giggled. I was so lucky to have a friend like her. “I’ll call you at the office around nine. I won’t take no for an answer.”

I KNEW WE’D FIND a formula somewhere in this place. Or if we didn’t, Darcy would. I just didn’t expect to find it in the carpet. Written in blood.

“Holy shit!” Dr. Rennard said.

I should explain that Dr. Rennard, our chief serologist, is in his sixties, extremely prim, proper, and conservative. He calls me Miss Pulaski. He wears a hat. And worse, he takes it off when I enter the room. He always wears a tie, speaks in proper formal English, and has never to my knowledge said the word “Gosh,” much less any stronger expletive. So you can imagine my reaction when I hear this sweet old geezer suddenly ejaculate “Holy shit!”

He was standing above the immense bloodstain, where the dismembered arm had been dangling before the coroner’s team packed it in ice and took it away. He was staring at the floor as if he’d never seen blood before in his entire life.

I inched beside him. “What is it?”

He pointed downward, his arm shaking. “The…blood.”

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he was talking about. “Doctor? I…know there’s blood. We all saw it when we came in. One of those funny facts of criminology—where you find severed arms, you usually find blood.”

“But—but—” His face was awash with confusion. “We always…microscrutinize. We take samples. We fix the stain then lay paper to preserve it. I never thought to look at the…the…big picture.”

“The big picture? Of blood?”

“I mean, who would?” The man looked so shaken, if I’d had any Valium left, I would’ve given it to him. “And it wasn’t really apparent until the fixative set in.”

I grabbed him by the shoulders. In the movies, people always shake and slap guys who are acting like this, but I resisted that temptation, since he already looked as if he were about to come apart at the seams. “Dr. Rennard, have you found something that could be useful to the investigation? If you have, please tell me.”

He nodded shakily, then removed the remainder of the protective butcher paper and stared at the stain as a whole. The big picture.

It took me a minute. It was like staring at one of those Magic Eye puzzles where you have to let your eyes go into deep focus until the hidden reverse three-dimensional image finally appears. For the longest time, I saw nothing.

And then it came to me. What else could it be? Mathematical equations. Two of them. Scrawled in the bloodstained carpet.

I TOOK THE equations down, best i could make them out, scrabbling for position while Amelia and the videographers and maybe half a hundred other criminalists fought for access.

I didn’t understand these equations any more than I had any of the others, except that these did not appear to be quite so complex. Perhaps it’s hard to get anything complex down in blood. Even seven pints only goes so far.

I stared at them, but it was pointless; all it did was remind me of how poor my SAT math score had been. I wondered if this might be an opportune moment to slip out to the car and show them to Darcy…

“Good to see you hard at work, Lieutenant.”

His voice was so loud and so close that I almost jumped out of my skin. “Chief O’Bannon.” He was standing just behind me, leaning heavily on his metal cane. “What are you doing here?”

“What is the chief of police doing at a homicide scene?” His eyes screwed upward. “Maybe Granger’s right about you.”

I didn’t dare ask what that meant. “How’s everything going? How’s Darcy? I haven’t seen him since—”

“Cut the crap, Susan. I spotted him outside in your car.”

Oh. Well, that did change things.

“Care to explain what he’s doing there? Since I expressly forbade you to involve him in any part of this case other than the interview of your weird math specialist?”

“Well, I, um…” Words, come on, words! “I had an interview with a difficult witness earlier today, someone about his age, so I thought he might be able to give me some psychological insight.”

“Darcy? Psychological insight?” He appeared somewhat less than convinced. “And what are you doing?”

“Me? I’m…” I showed him the paper I was holding. “I was working on these mathematical equations we just found in the carpet.”

His eyes squinted. “Let me see if I understand this. You’re working on complex math problems, while Darcy is out in the car working on a psychological profile. What is this, Freaky Friday?”

I cleared my throat. “If you have no objection, I’d like to pass these equations along to Darcy.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Chief, you don’t know how good he is at these math problems!”

“I don’t?” He leaned into my face so close I could smell his breath, not that I wanted to. “May I remind you that I’ve been living with that boy all his life? When he was three years old, he was obsessed with numbers. Everything was about numbers. If we went on a drive, he counted the fire hydrants. If we went to see his grandparents, he called out the mile markers. Sometimes he counted down seconds as they passed, aloud. He would count aloud to a thousand—then start crying, because he thought that’s all there was. So I showed him how you could always add one to any number and keep on going into infinity—a lesson I learned to regret, believe me. His math OCDs were out of control, till we finally got some help from Dr. Lovass’s behavioral modification team. But there’s no such thing as a cure. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I…think so.”

“In other words, the obsessive-compulsive behavior could return at any moment. Especially if he’s given incentive.”

“But I would never—”

“For instance, if he thinks obsessing on numbers will get him in tight with this bubble-headed behaviorist he’s got a huge crush on.”

“Oh, now you’re being ridi—”

His face was so angry I was afraid he was going to hit me. “I know my son, Susan. Better than you.”

“But, Chief—” I pressed my forehead. My stress levels were rising like a thermometer in a sauna, and I had no chemical additives left to combat it. “This could be important. And Darcy might solve the equations immediately, or at least tell us what they are. Please. Just this one last time.”

He grunted. “Well, I’d be pretty stupid to say no, wouldn’t I? Since he is here and all.” He turned toward Granger, then stopped and pivoted back on me. “But this is the last time, Pulaski. The absolute last time.”

I didn’t waste any time. I ran outside, brought Darcy inside, found him a quiet corner at a conference table in the lawyer’s office, and handed him the equations.

“Hurray!” he cried, almost immediately after seeing them. “Hip hip hooray!”

Well, I knew he liked math, but this seemed a bit much. “May I ask the reason for this sudden display of exuberance?”

“I can solve these!”

I slid into the chair next to him. “You can? Why?”

“Because these can be solved.”

“And the answer is…a number? Life, the universe and everything?”

“A letter.”

“A letter? But why—”

“Because it is algebra. Shhh.”

Excuse moi.

“The common denominator is fifteen, so I multiply this one by five and this one by three…” He was doing it all in his head; he didn’t even ask for a piece of paper. “…the twos can cancel each other out, so that leaves us with
T.
The second one is almost the same, but with different letters. I wonder why the killer would use different letters?”

“What do you mean? What do letters have to do with this?”

“They are variables. Unknowns. The problems do not tell me enough that I can give you a number for them. All I can give you is a letter.”

“And they’re different.”

“Right.”

“Well, I don’t see how that helps us.”

“The answer to the first one is
T,
and the answer to the second one is
V.
”

“Well, maybe it’s not meant to mean anything. Maybe it’s just—” I froze, closed my mouth and gave my brain a momentary opening. “The answers are
T
and
V
?”

“That’s right?” he said, beaming as if he’d just saved a baby from a burning car. “And I know now that this is a custard day because—Susan?”

I was already out the door. I remembered seeing a television in the front lobby.

I turned it on. Nothing unusual happened.

“Hey, Pulaski,” I heard Granger yell. “Oprah doesn’t come on until four.”

Asswipe. The television had a built-in videotape player. I punched the Eject button and a tape popped out. I was secretly hoping for
Finding Nemo,
but I was sorely disappointed. It wasn’t a commercial tape. Something homemade.

It had already been rewound, so I popped it back in the tape deck and pushed Play.

And was almost immediately sorry I had done so. By the time the killer was swinging the axe, I was so sick I had to leave the room.

I DO NOT KNOW why they will not just let me work on this case and get it over with when it seems like I do all the best stuff anyway. My dad does not think I can be a policeman and he will not let me try but who was the one who found the second equation? That was me. And who was the one who found the water tower? That was me. And who was the one who solved the equations that helped them find the tape? That was me. And what was my reward for helping them? My dad gave me bus fare and told me to go home. I think maybe Susan wanted me to stay but I cannot be sure because I cannot exactly see people’s faces or understand their feelings so maybe she was sad or maybe she was still messed up about what they saw in the videotape. They would not let me watch the videotape but I do not know why because I watch videotapes all the time and nothing could be worse than
Pocahontas.

Last night I had a dream and when I was sitting in Susan’s car all by myself it came back to me except then I guess it was a daydream except maybe I fell asleep again I do not really know. I dreamed that I woke up and my father was gone, and Mrs. Bellows was gone, and the pretty lady with the red hair at the custard shop was gone, and before long I realized that pretty much everyone was gone. The whole population of Earth had disappeared. And at first this was a good thing because I could play Rayman Arena longer than I am supposed to and I could watch
Futurama
which I am not supposed to and I could get into that closet my dad does not think I know about where he keeps his magazines with the ladies who forget to put on their clothes and the really strange videos and the gun that he does not want me to know he keeps at home because he is afraid I will put out my eye or something. But after a few days—I guess it was not really a few days because this was a dream and not like real time—I started to get bored. I liked not having my dad say Don’t Don’t Don’t Don’t but without anyone else around there was not really anything to Do.

And then I remembered Susan. I ran all the way over to her house thinking Susan Susan Susan Susan Susan should still be alive and she was still alive and I think she was happy I was there and she explained why she could not come see me but she was glad I came to see her. And that is when I realized—she did not have to adopt me anymore. She did not have to marry me. I could go to the police academy, if there still was one. We could do anything we wanted if we wanted and she wanted and it did not matter what anyone else thought. We could have babies, and even if Susan was not crazy about the idea she would want to because you need babies when everyone else has suddenly disappeared. We could even do sex if she wanted to but if she did not want to that was okay because I do not really care if we do sex all I want is to be with Susan.

I wonder if Susan would want to be with me. If everyone else suddenly disappeared and I was the only person left on the face of the earth.

ESTHER SAT beside Tucker in the living room of her apartment, reading the newspaper to him. He could read, a little, but only with difficulty, and he much preferred being read to. Just as he liked it when she cut his meat. And rocked him to sleep (after wild twisted sex during which she acted as if this clumsy oaf were The Sheik of Araby). He was like a child in so many ways. Which, she supposed, was why they got along so well. And why he was so easy to control.

“This reporter,” Esther explained, “this Jonathan Wooley, has almost every detail of any importance wrong. He thinks you broke into the office, but you didn’t, did you?”

“No,” Tucker said, looking up at her with subservient eyes. “The secretary let me in. I broke the window afterward, like you told me to do.”

“You’re a good boy,” she replied, patting him on the top of his head. “And he says that the secretary was knocked out—but you used the chloroform, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And the suggestion is that you were after money, which even this shabby journalist must know is balderdash. They’re just trying to comfort the populace. Trying to assure them that there is a motive they can understand, that we are simply operating out of greed.” She took his chin and raised it. “But we’re not, are we? We have a much higher purpose in mind.”

“Yeah. A sacred purpose.”

She quickly scanned the rest of the article. “Pathetic. This man doesn’t even know that you severed the lawyer’s arm. The police are probably intentionally withholding many details. So they can weed out crank confessions. Perhaps we should leave the next body on the monorail. Then everyone could see the truth for themselves.”