The Schwarzschild Radius (39 page)

“Okay.”

“We went over the things we got out of Greyson’s apartment. There were four digital cameras, but the memory sticks were all missing.”

“Not in the apartment?” asked McKenna.

“Went over everything four times. Not there.”

“Maybe what we got in the email.”

So it seemed Massey knew this art dealer who did a Sistine Ceiling with his body in the airport garage. How does the dealer fit in? Did Massey like both kids and men? Or just child porn buddies, swapping pictures and occasionally, kids? Why was Olivia chatting with all those adult men, some in their forties and fifties? Those guys had all checked out clean. Perverts maybe, but not killers.

Where could Rachel have gone in the middle of the night? And why? Her cell phone records didn’t indicate she made or received a call at that hour. Meeting a boy? She had a dorm all to herself in Manhattan that she could use anytime, so why leave in the middle of the night? Something occurred to him. Olivia and Rachel shared a room. He found the photo. Yes, there was an alarm clock radio next to Rachel’s bed.

“I need someone to find out if Rachel’s alarm clock was set to go off in the middle of the night and I need it now,” he said on the phone. He kept sifting through the emails. His phone rang.

“Yep, it was set to go off at 12:30 a.m.”

So she had an appointment―with who? Not that Joules kid. With Massey? Was she screwing the priest?

His cell went off again. This time it was the lab. This was it.

“McKenna here.”

“We’ve ID’d the body in those bags. It’s Evan Massey.”

assey had gotten to the Richmond Hill house early to prepare. All he needed to do now was cock the spear guns. He waited in the bedroom for his prey to enter the house.

No one had seen him arrive; in any case, he was disguised. He reviewed the plan once more.

After the killing, he would wrap the body in the plastic drop cloth he had picked up at Home Depot and seal the ends shut with Gorilla Tape. Then he would put the body in the trunk of his car. No one would see that either, thanks to the direct entry from the living room. He’d dump the body in the Meadowlands swamps with diving weights attached and that would be it.

This would delay the discovery by at least a few weeks. And if by chance the body was found, there would be no connection to him. The ID he had used to rent this house was fake, and he doubted the realtor could ever recognize him through the disguise and accent. He would take the Washington job, then, after a few months, resign for personal reasons and retire to Costa Rica, pedophile capital of the Western Hemisphere. There, he could collect the royalties from his book, continue writing, and set up another children’s shelter with ample donations from expats. There would be no way to trace anything to him. This screwed up his grand plans, but he had to reinvent himself and adapt, that’s all. For money, he had access to all the Transcendence House funds, which he would raid when the time was right. He had set up a generous retirement account for himself which he would tap into in the coming months.

Once he was settled into his new home, he would have the rest of the money wired down to Banco Nacional in San Jose and no one would ever hear from him again. For the past year, he had been looking into real estate in South America, and Costa Rica was the best place on all counts―weather, generous pensionado program, cheap cost of living and, above all, lots of promiscuous kids who don’t mind selling themselves for a few bucks. Heaven.

But all that would have to wait. One more task to take care of and it had to be done right.

He had left the front door deliberately unlocked. The target would have to walk through the foyer and make a left to enter the living room. From that angle, all would be invisible from the doorway in case someone happened by.

He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes to go. Massey loaded a bolt into the first spear gun and cocked it. He repeated it for the second. One shot through the center of the body should end it. The second would pierce the throat and silence the victim. At this range, he couldn’t miss. The practice in his basement gave him confidence.

Every muscle in his body tensed as he heard footsteps coming up the front stoop. The lights were on out front and he had a view of the street from a dark corner of the kitchen window.

A figure appeared. Alone, as agreed. The figure paused in front of the house and looked both ways. The head tilted toward the address over the front door.

Massey moved into position.

An instant later, the screen door squeaked open. The doorknob turned.

Massey wiped the sweat dripping from his brow.

The screen door closed and the entry door shut behind it.

Massey raised the weapon.

Emerging out of the foyer, the figure came into view, still in shadow.

Massey took aim at the midsection, his finger curled around the trigger. The figure advanced and came into the light.

Massey fired.

The spear bounced off the target’s chest and fell to the floor.

Massey grabbed the second spear gun as the figure turned its head toward him. The priest fired, but again the projectile glanced off the torso and hung from the jacket.

“You’re careless, Father,” said the Webmaster without a hint of fear. “Careless and stupid. Lovely girl you got to masquerade as Cindy. I hope you got into her pants.”

Massey had Gabriella send the killer a photo of herself taken when she was thirteen. For the next chat session, she put her hair in pigtails and got on the webcam. The man at the other end was certainly pleased with what he saw. Massey took over as Cindy and invited “Gerard” to the Richmond Hill address, where Cindy’s friend was staying alone until her parents returned from Europe. Massey had to kill him before he was caught and brought everyone down with him.

Both Massey and Greyson figured out that the Webmaster was killing the girls, because they had sent them to him. Greyson had sent him Kirsten Schrodinger, and Massey had sent him Belinda Knights. Both had turned up dead. And now Olivia was gone. As members of the Webmaster’s child porn site, they had been swapping kids for two years without a hitch. Then they started dying.

It wasn’t hard to find his target on the Internet. He knew where this predator lurked.

The man removed a Taser from his jacket and leveled it at the priest. “When I was a boy, I used to go to church every week and kneel in front of the fourteen Stations of the Cross. I did this for years. And look at me. He shot the priest in the abdomen. As Massey convulsed on the floor, the man calmly went on.

“The picture I sent you of that handsome young man was a Trojan horse, letting me inside your PC. Thirteen-year-old girls don’t have schedules that include speaking before the Elks and meeting with the First Lady.”

Massey’s mouth was locked in the open position, but no sound came out as his limbs flailed.

The figure picked up a spear gun.

“Quite a weapon. Three bands―you weren’t taking any chances. I used one of these on a man once. But it was underwater where everything is in slow motion.”

Massey got tangled in the wires, and the muscles of his face jumped over one another.

The Webmaster removed his jacket, revealing the body armor that covered his chest. He turned off the Taser, then kicked Massey in the face.

“Now I have a question for you. Were you in on the hit the other day?”

The priest rolled on the floor, spasming. A foot came down on his neck to steady him.

“I need an answer. Were you in on it?”

“No,” he managed to reply.

“Taking a man’s life is a serious thing. As you’re about to find out.”

He tied the priest’s hands behind his back with Flexicuffs, then proceeded to cut his clothes off. Once naked, the interrogation began. The Webmaster pulled a chair up next to the bound man like a confessor.

“I try to get to know all my victims as well as I can in the brief time we have together, but usually they’re very young and there isn’t much depth to their lives. But you―you are really accomplished. You’ve lived a fairly long and distinguished life, and I wonder how someone like you ends up trying to commit murder. How a young girl sells her body is easy to understand―youth, money―I get that. But you went through seminary―St. Bartholomew, I believe. In Brooklyn. You became an ordained priest, and still you’re willing to kill. You were already a child predator. I don’t judge you for it, but make me understand how someone who has come so close to God can turn away and become evil, as you have become. I need to know all your sins.”

When there was no answer, he thrust the heel of his shoe into the priest’s genitals.

“I’m trying to prepare you to face your Lord. Now confess. Get it all off your chest. I’m your only salvation. Repent.”

He confessed his sins to his executioner. Krupal, the girls, everything.

“I downloaded your book off your PC―The Infinite Hypocrisy. Noble work, getting them water for their parched throats. Then, of course, you shoved your cock down their daughters’ throats. I would have done the same. We’re kindred spirits, you and I.”

The killer rolled Massey onto a plastic drop cloth and removed several plastic bags from his coat and a hacksaw. He put a strip of tape across the condemned man’s mouth, then cut off his head.