The Soul Catcher (66 page)

Washington, D.C.

M
aggie drove down several unfamiliar streets but found the old building easily. It was an unsavory neighborhood where she’d probably need to worry about her little red Toyota. Three teenage boys watched her the entire time she parked her car and walked to the front door. It made her want to flash her holstered Smith & Wesson nestled under her jacket. Instead, she did the next best thing—she ignored them.

She wasn’t sure why she was here, except that she was tired of waiting. She needed to do something, anything. She was just so tired of those old memories taunting her, making her feel guilty, that she was somehow responsible—once again—for her mother being in harm’s way. She knew she wasn’t responsible. Of course she knew that, but what she knew and what she felt were two entirely separate things.

The inside of the old building surprised Maggie. It was clean, better than clean, with the scent of Murphy’s Oil. As she climbed the wooden staircase, she noticed the walls had been freshly painted and the second-floor landing’s carpet, though threadbare, showed not a spot of dirt. On the third level, however, she could smell something like a disinfectant, and the odor grew as she progressed down the hall. It seemed to be coming from number five, Ben Garrison’s apartment.

She knocked and waited, though she didn’t expect him to be here. He’d still be in Cleveland, only hopefully this time he hadn’t gotten to the crime scene before everyone else. Tully and Racine had probably already arrested Everett and his accomplice, Brandon. They had DNA to prove Everett’s guilt, eyewitnesses and photos to put Brandon with two of the victims minutes before their deaths. Case closed. So what was still nagging her? Maybe she simply hated that Garrison—that the “invisible cameraman”—had gotten away with screwing up crime scenes. Maybe she was curious about his apparent obsession with death, his voyeurism. Perhaps she simply needed to keep her mind preoccupied.

Maggie glanced down the hallway and knocked again. This time she heard scuffles on the staircase. A little gray-haired lady appeared on the landing, staring up at her through thick glasses.

“I think he’s out of town,” she told Maggie. But before Maggie could respond, she asked, “Are you from the health department? I don’t have anything to do with those roaches. I want you to know, it was his doing.”

Maggie’s suit must have looked official. She didn’t say a word, and yet the woman was scooting in front of her to unlock Garrison’s door.

“I try to keep the place clean, but some of these tenants…Well, you just can’t trust people these days.” She opened the door and waved a hand at Maggie as she headed back to the staircase.

“Just close up when you’re finished.”

Maggie hesitated. What would it hurt to take a look?

The first thing to catch her eyes were the African death masks, three of them, on the wall over the cracked vinyl sofa. They had been carved from wood with paint-smeared tribal symbols across the forehead and cheeks and under the eyeholes. On the opposite wall were several black-and-white photographs, labeled portraits: Zulu, Three-Hill Tribe, Aborigine, Basuto, Andamanese. Garrison seemed obsessed with his subjects’ eyes, sometimes cropping the forehead and chin in order to draw more focus to the eyes. A bottom photo, labeled: Tepehuane, showed what looked like the back of his subject’s head, perhaps a defiant stance, a denial. One meaningful enough for Garrison to keep.

Maggie shook her head. She didn’t have time to psychoanalyze Garrison, nor was she certain she would if she had the time. There was something odd about a man who could be so fascinated by ancient cultures and their people and yet stand back and watch young women be attacked in a public park. Or did Garrison consider everyone to be simply a photographic subject and nothing more?

At the police station, when she questioned him about the incident in Boston Common, he had said something strange about her having no idea what it took to stop or to make news happen. Yet, wasn’t that exactly what he had been doing with Everett? His photos had broken the story about the church’s members and their possible connection to the murder of the senator’s daughter and the murder in Boston. But it went further than that. It was his photographs that caused Everett to initially even become a suspect. In a sense Garrison’s photos had led them directly to Everett. He had made news happen.

Something skittered across the floor behind her. Maggie spun around. Three huge cockroaches escaped into a crack half their size under the kitchen counter.

Damn it!

She tried to settle her nerves. Cockroaches. Why did it not surprise her that Garrison would be surrounded by them?

But the landlady was correct in that Garrison’s apartment did not match the spotless hall and the staircase, nor the rest of the aging but clean building. Discarded clothes trailed to the bedroom and bathroom. Crusty dishes and empty beer bottles littered the kitchen counter. Stacks of magazines and newspapers created leaning roach hotels in almost every corner. No, she shouldn’t be surprised to see Garrison’s roommates were cockroaches.

She wandered through the rooms, finding nothing interesting in his clutter. Although she wasn’t sure what she expected to find. Suddenly, she stepped on a book that lay in the middle of the floor, as if someone had dropped it. The leather binding was clean and smooth. It was definitely not something he usually kept on the floor. On closer inspection she realized it was a journal, the pages filled with a lovely, slanted penmanship that sometimes took on a frantic urgency, easily visible by the dramatic changes in jagged lines and curves.

She picked it up and it opened to a page bookmarked with what looked to be an old unused airline ticket, the corners worn and creased. Destination was Uganda, Africa, though it certainly was long expired. The entry it marked was also dog-eared, the only page with its gold-trim creased.

“Dear son,” the entry began, “this is something I could never tell you. If you’re reading it now, it’s only after my death, and I apologize that this is the manner in which I have resorted to tell you. A coward’s manner—it would certainly embarrass any Zulu tribe member. Please forgive me for that. But how could I possibly look into your sad and already angry eyes and tell you that your father had brutally raped me? Yes, that’s right. Raped me. I was only nineteen. It was my first year in college. I had a brilliant career I was preparing for.”

Maggie stopped and flipped to the beginning of the journal, looking for a name, a reference to the owner, and finding none. But she didn’t need a name. She already knew whose journal it was. It certainly couldn’t be a coincidence. But how had Garrison come across the book? Where in the world had he found it? Among Everett’s personal belongings, perhaps? Would Everett have kept the journal of a woman he had raped more than twenty-five years ago? And how would he have gotten it?

She slipped the book into her jacket pocket. If Garrison had stolen it, he couldn’t mind her borrowing it. She was ready to leave when she noticed a small room off the kitchen. It wouldn’t have attracted her attention except that a faint red light glowed from inside. Of course, Garrison would have his own darkroom.

No. She was wrong, she realized as she opened the door. It wasn’t just a darkroom. It was a gold mine.

Prints were strung on a clothesline that stretched the length of the small room. Chemicals had been left in the plastic trays, lining the inside of an oversize sink. Bottles and canisters and developing tanks filled the shelves. And there were prints everywhere, overlapping one another and covering every bit of space on the walls and counter.

There were more prints of tribes doing their ceremonial dances. Prints of Africans with hideous scars. Prints of strange mutant frogs with legs coming out of their heads.

And then she saw them—prints of dead women.

There must have been about a dozen prints. Women naked and braced against trees, eyes wide open with duct tape across their mouths and their wrists handcuffed. Maggie recognized Ginny Brier, the transient they had found under the viaduct, the floater pulled from the lake outside of Raleigh and Maria Leonetti. But there were others. At least a half dozen others. All in the same pose. All with their eyes wide open, looking directly at the camera.

Jesus! How long had this been going on? And how long had Garrison been following Everett and his boys?

Her hand reached for the light switch without looking to find it. She couldn’t take her eyes away from the dead women’s eyes. Surely there was a light other than the red safelight. She found the set of switches and flipped one, causing the entire room to go black. But before she could flip the other one on, she stood paralyzed, staring in disbelief. The clothesline that stretched across the room glowed in the dark.

She leaned against the counter. Her knees went weak. Her stomach plunged. The clothesline glowed in the dark. Of course, what a perfect invention for a darkroom. What a perfect weapon for a killer.

How could she have been so stupid! Garrison didn’t just photograph the dead women. It wasn’t dead eyes that interested him. The eyes are the windows to the soul. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Was Garrison trying to photograph the fleeting soul?

She flipped on the red light again and took a closer look at the photos, the track marks on the victims’ necks. Over and over again, he must have brought them back to consciousness, posing them, waiting, patiently waiting for that one moment while he watched with his camera ready on a tripod nearby, waiting. Waiting over and over again to catch a glimpse, to photograph that moment when the soul left.

Garrison. It was Garrison and his obsession with that last moment of death.

Maggie heard the creak of floorboards in the living room. She grabbed for her gun. No cockroach was that fucking big. Was it the landlady? Maybe the real health inspector had arrived. It couldn’t be Garrison. He was in Cleveland.

She inched her way to the darkroom’s door, edging along the counter. Another creak, this time louder, closer, just on the other side of the door. She took aim, holding the gun with both hands and ignoring the slight tremor in her knees. Then in one quick motion she kicked open the darkroom door and rushed out, pointing her gun and yelling “Freeze!”

It was Garrison.

He stood in the middle of his apartment over the frightened landlady, holding a length of clothesline around her neck, yanking on it like a leash. The old lady was on her small bony knees, gasping for air, her glasses gone, her eyes glazed over as her skeletal arms flayed and struggled against him. He seemed unfazed by it all as he looked up at Maggie. It was as if he didn’t even notice Maggie’s gun pointed at his chest. Instead, he held out his free hand and demanded, “If she doesn’t have it, then you must. Hand over my mother’s journal.”

T
ully had a bad feeling about this whole mess. Yes, they had caught a rapist, but had they caught a murderer? The kid, Brandon—the tough guy, the asshole who beat up and raped young girls—broke down into a sniveling crybaby when they arrested him for the murders of Ginny Brier and Maria Leonetti. But now, as he and several agents followed Stephen Caldwell into the hotel where Everett was supposedly staying, now Tully wasn’t too sure anymore.

The desk clerk had given them a card key. No questions were asked when the badges came out. Caldwell claimed he didn’t know why Everett hadn’t shown up at the park. There was something in the polite black man’s manner that told Tully he was lying through his teeth. It didn’t help matters that Caldwell himself seemed in a rush to get somewhere when they finally found him outside the pavilion, gathering certain members together. No, Tully had a feeling this Caldwell, this stool-pigeon asshole, had his own agenda. Now he wondered if they were wasting time. If that was also Caldwell’s agenda. Was the hotel a distraction? Was Everett on his way to some airfield?

The elevator opened at the fifteenth floor and Caldwell hesitated. Agents Rizzo and Markham gave him a shove, not even bothering to wait for Tully’s instructions. They were pissed, too. None of them had to say a word to one another to know something was not quite right.

Caldwell hesitated again at the hotel room door, and Tully noticed the man’s hand tremble as he missed the slot for the card key twice. Finally the door unlocked.

Rizzo and Markham had their weapons drawn but at their sides. Tully gave Caldwell another shove for the man to go in ahead of them. He could see the perspiration glistening on his forehead, but Caldwell opened the door and entered.

Caldwell came to an abrupt halt, and Tully could see he was just as surprised as the rest of them. In the center of the room, Reverend Everett sat in a chair, his wrists handcuffed, his mouth taped shut and his dead eyes staring directly at them. Tully didn’t need a medical examiner for this one. He recognized the pinkish tint to the skin and would need only one guess. Cause of death would be cyanide poisoning.

T
ully had a bad feeling about this whole mess. Yes, they had caught a rapist, but had they caught a murderer? The kid, Brandon—the tough guy, the asshole who beat up and raped young girls—broke down into a sniveling crybaby when they arrested him for the murders of Ginny Brier and Maria Leonetti. But now, as he and several agents followed Stephen Caldwell into the hotel where Everett was supposedly staying, now Tully wasn’t too sure anymore.

The desk clerk had given them a card key. No questions were asked when the badges came out. Caldwell claimed he didn’t know why Everett hadn’t shown up at the park. There was something in the polite black man’s manner that told Tully he was lying through his teeth. It didn’t help matters that Caldwell himself seemed in a rush to get somewhere when they finally found him outside the pavilion, gathering certain members together. No, Tully had a feeling this Caldwell, this stool-pigeon asshole, had his own agenda. Now he wondered if they were wasting time. If that was also Caldwell’s agenda. Was the hotel a distraction? Was Everett on his way to some airfield?

The elevator opened at the fifteenth floor and Caldwell hesitated. Agents Rizzo and Markham gave him a shove, not even bothering to wait for Tully’s instructions. They were pissed, too. None of them had to say a word to one another to know something was not quite right.

Caldwell hesitated again at the hotel room door, and Tully noticed the man’s hand tremble as he missed the slot for the card key twice. Finally the door unlocked.

Rizzo and Markham had their weapons drawn but at their sides. Tully gave Caldwell another shove for the man to go in ahead of them. He could see the perspiration glistening on his forehead, but Caldwell opened the door and entered.

Caldwell came to an abrupt halt, and Tully could see he was just as surprised as the rest of them. In the center of the room, Reverend Everett sat in a chair, his wrists handcuffed, his mouth taped shut and his dead eyes staring directly at them. Tully didn’t need a medical examiner for this one. He recognized the pinkish tint to the skin and would need only one guess. Cause of death would be cyanide poisoning.