AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There,” I said, putting my finger on my computer screen just above a woman in a red tracksuit jogging toward the camera. There was sound: birds, wind through leaves, then, Blackout’s digitized voice, which was pulsing but clear.
He said, “This is the kind of girl Burke likes. Twenties. Limber. Strong.”
Blackout called out to the runner, “Excuse me. I think I’m lost.”
The young woman stopped running a few yards from Blackout, caught her breath, walked closer. She had chin-length, wavy brown hair, a pretty face.
She asked Blackout, “Where do you want to go?”
“Brooks Avenue,” said Blackout. “Where’d I go wrong?”
Behind my shoulder Alvarez was watching as I reacted to the scene playing out on-screen.
“Oh-my-God, oh-my-God,” I said. “This is last night’s victim.”
The runner was looking at a map on Blackout’s phone, pointing out that he’d passed Brooks Avenue, tracing the correct direction on the screen. Our view changed. Blackout was looking up and around, as if he was visualizing the route, giving us a panoramic view of the Fuller Theological Seminary campus. There were lawns. Winding paths. Park benches. Sabal palms. But this was not a sightseeing tour for my benefit. Blackout was making sure the way was clear.
His gloved hand dipped into the pocket of his black windbreaker and came out clenched around a small canister. The runner looked at it, puzzled. She didn’t know what it was. The gloved hand aimed the nozzle at her eyes and pressed the lever with his thumb. The woman shrieked, tried to clear her eyes with her hands and sleeves, but she had no chance against this man who reached for her. She backed up, stumbled, and dropped to the pavement.
I gripped the edge of my desk as she cried out, but all Icould see of the scuffle that followed was Blackout’s right hand clapped over her mouth, his left arm angling her into a carotid restraint hold. He formed a right angle with her neck in the crux between his forearm and biceps. He used his full weight to subdue her—and he squeezed.
Alvarez and I watched in shock as the woman’s writhing and kicking stopped. The leather-gloved hand came off her mouth and she didn’t cry out. She was lifeless. Dead.
Blackout stood, and again panned the campus before walking out the way he came. Sound came up, classical music I recognized as “Adagio for Strings.” Soft. Mournful. A dramatic bass line. Blackout’s view shifted upward as if he were looking through palm fronds overhead.
In his digitized voice he said, “Dedicated to you, Mr. Burke.”
The image of palm trees backlit by an indigo sky froze. Then faded to black.
CHAPTER 31
AT TEN THAT morning, the squad room was loud with ringing phones and homicide cops shouting to each other across the aisle. The interview rooms were full. Brady was in his office with Brenda. I was on the line with Jacob Johnston’s widow when Conklin arrived with Cindy.
I explained to Mrs. Johnston that finding who’d killed her husband was top priority, that we still had no suspects, no witnesses, and agreed with her that Mr. Johnston had no known enemies. And I promised to call her day or night if there was a break or even a crack in the case. She was crying when I said goodbye. By then, Cindy and Conklin were crossing the room toward our square horseshoe of desks under the overhead TV.
The morning anchor was talking about the murder in Pasadena when Cindy slipped into Conklin’s chair and glanced up at the TV. I looked her over, asked her how her flight had been, how she was feeling.
“I had a crappy night’s sleep at the hotel, but otherwise I’m, uh, perfect.”
I said, “Okay, good,” and squeezed her hand, but honestly she looked tense and pale. Conklin dragged a chair over to our desks and I told him that Chi and Cappy were at Ennis, Neiman and Bright Advertising checking out Brad Fleet’s alibi.
Rich said to Cindy, “Coffee, hon?”
While he brought Cindy to the break room, I forwarded Blackout’s newest production to Brady, waited thirty to forty seconds, then told Alvarez I’d be right back.
Brady was watching Blackout’s video when I opened his office door. He was swearing softly, making notes with a red grease pencil on a yellow legal pad. When “Adagio for Strings” came up under moonlit palms, he said, “This guy loves himself. He wants to be famous.”
He clicked off the video and looked up at me. He said, “Boxer, let’s talk.”
We covered a lot of ground in five minutes. We both had unproven theories and one common certainty: that Blackout had killed at least two, and maybe five, people in less than a week. In addition to the two videos he’d sent us—Ralph Hammer and this unnamed young jogger—we also liked him for Catherine and Josie Fleet, given the Evan Burke connection, with Jacob Johnston as possible collateral. Brady said, “Grab Conklin and Alvarez, Chi and Cappy, and ask Cindy to join us in the corner.”
Copy that. Quickly, the seven of us assembled in the empty corner office. It hadn’t been cleaned since our last meeting. Coffee containers were in the trash. Morgue photos were still taped to the whiteboard. Cindy stared at Hammer and Johnston’s dead headshots and Brady came in with more faces ofthe dead; Catherine Fleet, Josie Fleet, and a screenshot printout of the unnamed woman from Pasadena.
Brady taped them to the board and drew a timeline down the left-hand side starting with Saturday and Ralph Hammer to last night’s murder of the woman in Pasadena.
Putting down his red pencil, Brady turned to Cindy. “You know what I’m going to say?”
“It’s off the record. It is. Girl Scout’s honor.”
