Whisper in the Dark (A Thriller) Read online

  “That’s true no matter what religion you practice.”

  Solomon nodded. “Action and reaction. Everything we do, every move we make is countered by another move. It’s the world’s way of gettin’ itself back in sync.”

  “Like karma,” she said.

  Solomon shook his head. “Karma’s different. That’s all about people being mindful of what they do. Be good and get good in return. Do bad, get bad back.”

  “Then I don’t understand.”

  “The Rhythm don’t give a shit what you do, just so long as everything’s in balance. And when it ain’t, it’ll do anything it has to to correct it.”

  “What does any of this have to do with your friend?”

  “Her being here ain’t no accident,” Solomon told her. “She’s here because The Rhythm wants her here. Wants us all here, to balance things out.”

  “What things?”

  “I’m not sure. But the woman you’ve got in that room isn’t who you think she is. She’s what we call un emprunteuse.”

  “A what?”

  “Un emprunteuse. A borrower. One of the children of the drum.”

  Another frown. Solomon knew he was treading on dangerous ground here. Had just crossed that invisible line that most people don’t want to cross. But to her credit, the nurse lady didn’t laugh or get up and throw him out. She’d probably heard wilder stories in her day.

  “Are you a Christian woman?”

  She shrugged. “More or less.”

  “Then you probably believe that when people die, they become spirits, right? That the soul travels on.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Well, sometimes, when a person dies before her time, when her death throws off the beat, messes up the rhythm, she finds herself kinda trapped in the middle of nowhere, lookin’ for a way to make things right. And one of those ways is to borrow a little time among the living.”

  “And you think that’s what your friend has done?”

  “If I’m right about this, the woman in that room ain’t my friend,” Solomon said. “Not anymore, at least.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, she might look a little like Myra. Got some of the same marks and features, but Myra’s just the vessel. Somebody else has got ahold of her body, and she’s changing.”

  A pause. “Changing how?”

  “Her eye color, maybe. Nose not quite as big as it once was, fingers thinner, shoulders wider. She’s slowly taking on the form of the borrower. And the migration ain’t an easy thing. There’s a lot of pain involved. Takes hours. Sometimes days. All depends on how accommodating your host is, and how familiar the borrower is with the ways of The Rhythm.”

  She gave him a bemused look. “Wouldn’t your friend have something to say about all this?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you,” Solomon said. “The only way a borrower can take over is if the host is either too weak to resist or just plain dead. But just because we’re dead, don’t mean we ain’t still attached to our bodies. Some of us can get pretty possessive about it. So the borrower’s got a better chance at success if she knows the host. Got permission to come aboard, so to speak.”

  “I don’t suppose you know who this so-called borrower might be?”

  There was a minute trace of sarcasm in her voice now, and he could see that he’d misjudged her. That she was merely tolerating him. Giving him a chance to speak his peace before she tossed him back in with the rest of the loonies.

  Solomon couldn’t really blame her. This was pretty nutty stuff to an outsider. But when you thought about it, it wasn’t any crazier than the beliefs of any other culture or religion. If you’re born into it, you believe. If not, you either laugh or start dialing the mental health hotline.

  “No,” Solomon said, refusing to give in. “I’m afraid I don’t know who she is. But somebody in this hospital does. You take her out of that box, parade her around for a while, and I guarantee somebody’ll recognize her.”

  The nurse lady stiffened. Had he struck a chord?

  Hard to say.

  She gave him a curt smile and stood up. “This is a fascinating story, Mr. St. Fort, it really is. But I have a lot of work to do. Why don’t we get you back to the Day Room now?”

  “That’s it? That’s all you want to know?”

  “I think I’ve heard enough. Maybe we can talk more later.”

  He knew she was only humoring him. Mentally, she had just made a big red check mark next to his name and he had a feeling he’d soon be on a regiment of antipsychotic drugs. But he also sensed by that last reaction that what he’d said wasn’t completely lost on her. She seemed a bit rattled. Unnerved.

  She started to turn toward the door and he grabbed her wrist. “Hold on, now, hold on.”

  Her face hardened. “Please let me go.”

  He immediately released her. “I know what I’m telling you sounds crazy. I don’t blame you for thinkin’ I’m just like the rest of these poor folk, but whoever took Myra’s body didn’t come here to play patty-cake.”

  “Then why is she here?”

  “Hard to say, but she knows somebody. Somebody in this hospital. And she wants to communicate.” He paused. “Maybe more than that.”

  “And she winds up here just by coincidence?”

  Solomon shook his head. “You aren’t paying attention. There ain’t no coincidences. That’s The Rhythm doin’ what it does. Makin’ sure all the pieces come together at the right time, in the right place.”

  Another curt smile. No warmth. Not even tolerance this time. “Enjoy your stay, Mr. St. Fort.”

  She turned to leave again and Solomon grabbed her arm a second time. “Listen to me. I don’t know what happened to the woman who’s taking over Myra’s body, I don’t know if she had an accident or if somebody killed her, but—”

  “Let go of me,” the nurse lady said, pulling her arm free. Then she threw open the door and shouted, “Security!”

  “You’ve gotta listen to me. Let me have some time with her. If it ain’t too late, I might be able to reverse the change. Get Myra back before anything bad happens.”

  “Security!”

  A split second after the word left her mouth, a big guy in a uniform showed up, looking ready to bust some heads.

  “Get him out of here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The guard grabbed Solomon by the shoulders, pushing him toward the door.

  But Solomon resisted, turning toward the nurse lady. “You gotta let me see her. I might be able to—”

  “Shut your mouth,” the guard said, roughly wrenching his arms behind him and spinning him around.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Solomon thought he saw a troubled look on the nurse lady’s face, a look that said she might just believe him after all. But it wasn’t enough to get her to stop the guard from dragging him away.

  In the end, he supposed it didn’t much matter. The Rhythm would do what it had to do.

  And whatever that turned out to be, neither one of them would be able to stop it.

  38

  THE MAN KNOWN as DickMan229 lived in a squat, two-story apartment building not far from Blanchard Beach. A big block of cement, it housed about twenty units overlooking a small, oval swimming pool that looked like it had been pissed in at least one time too many.

  According to Janovic’s Palm Pilot—and a subsequent check of Todd Hastert’s arrest record—Hastert lived in one of the upstairs units, apartment 2F. After signing out a fresh new sedan from the motor pool, Blackburn took the ride over, climbed the stairs to the second floor, knocked on Hastert’s door—

  —and got nothing. No answer.

  So he decided to wait.

  From his parking spot on the street, he had a good view of the apartment. He’d brought Abby Tolan’s murder book along with him, hoping to catch a minute to take another look at it, and figured now was as good a time as any. Clipping a copy of Hastert’s mug shot to the visor, he pulled the blue b
inder onto his lap and cracked it open.

  She had been discovered in her studio darkroom by the cleaning crew who regularly serviced the building, which was located in a trendy section of Ocean City proper, just off Main Street. Some hapless janitor had gone in to dump the waste basket and found her on the floor. Or at least parts of her. Piled in the center of the room like firewood.

  Her body had been doused with photo chemicals, the bottles scattered around her.

  She had been dismembered in a way that was nearly identical to the seven previous victims. Hands and feet severed at the wrists and ankles. Head severed just below the chin. Arms at the shoulder and elbow. Legs at the torso and knee. And the torso itself had been sliced open, the intestines removed and wrapped around it.

  This had all been preceded by several vicious knife blows to the chest and abdomen.

  And the removal of her left ear.

  Crime scene technicians had found traces of her blood in a small shower located near the darkroom. It was assumed that the killer had cleaned up before leaving, but no evidence was found that might lead them to his identity.

  Investigators had known immediately that they were dealing with another of Vincent’s conquests and a look inside the victim’s mouth confirmed it. The now familiar burn marks had been created by what the crime scene techs determined to be a battery-operated PowerBlast cauterizing or line-cutting tool, often used by fly fishermen. This determination, while based on tests done in the laboratory, was considered to be a “best guess.”

  The tool, which looked much like an oversized fountain pen with a needle-sharp point, was sold via Internet, at thousands of tackle and bait shops, and at approximately twenty different retail department store chains throughout the country, so the chances of narrowing down a purchase were fairly slim.

  Time of death was estimated to be between 6:00 and 11:00 P.M. Despite the condition of the body, they had no trouble identifying the victim. Her face and hair matched several of the self-portraits they’d found hanging in the adjacent gallery. Later, fingerprint and dental matches confirmed that she was Abby Tolan.

  A search of her purse uncovered a cell phone with a message from “Michael” waiting on it. Because of his recent fame, investigators assumed this to be the victim’s husband, Dr. Michael Tolan. When detectives failed to find him at home, they called him at the number on the victim’s cell phone and notified him.

  Tolan was described by the investigator who made the call—Jerry Rossbach—as “distraught” over the news of his wife’s murder. He returned home immediately and was subsequently questioned. Because the investigators had already identified Vincent as the killer—a fact later confirmed by the medical examiner—they did not treat Dr. Tolan as a suspect and questioned him accordingly.

  This, to Blackburn’s mind, was a mistake. While he understood their reasoning, he felt they should have thrown a few hardballs at Tolan, just to see how well he handled them. It’s never fun to beat up on the victim’s family, but you never know where it might lead.

  According to the victim’s profile, Elizabeth Abagail Tolan was thirty-two years old, born in Mississippi, and raised in New Orleans by a single parent, one Margaret Elizabeth Fontaine. Fontaine was a known prostitute.

  A search of the crime databases revealed that the younger Fontaine had been arrested twice by the NOPD. The first was a misdemeanor prostitution charge when, at seventeen, she solicited an undercover vice detective. The second was an assault charge at twenty-five, when she attacked a former boyfriend whom, she claimed, had stolen one of her prized cameras.

  She was convicted and paid a fine for the first charge, but the second was dropped due to lack of cooperation by the assault victim.

  Abby Fontaine’s career as a photographer began to blossom the year she turned twenty-six. Having moved to New York the previous year, she quickly earned a reputation as an Annie Leibovitz in waiting. Her stark black-and-white portraits of up-and-coming rock stars put her on the map, and a feature story in Rolling Stone magazine had made her the celebrity photographer of choice. Those who talked about her often used the word “artist.”

  Fontaine met her husband at age twenty-eight, when she was hired by his publishing company to shoot his portrait for an upcoming book. A year later they were married, and Fontaine, now Abby Tolan, joined her husband in Ocean City, California, where she opened up a studio and gallery.

  A list of her clients was found by investigating officers, and several of them were subsequently questioned. None of the interviews proved fruitful to the investigation.

  Her calendar for the day of her death had been completely blank. No outgoing calls had been made from her studio or cell phone, and the only incoming call for that night, at 9:00 P.M., had come from her husband, informing her of his impending arrival in Los Angeles.

  The lock on the front door to her gallery was jimmied with what crime scene techs believed to be a screwdriver or a pocketknife. The assailant had surprised the victim right there in her darkroom and offered no mercy. The medical examiner determined that she was dead within seconds of the attack.

  The dismembering, however, had taken considerably more time. The weapons of choice had been a steak knife and a hacksaw, both consistent with the previous killings. Neither had been recovered after a thorough search of the premises.

  Blackburn looked again at the estimated time of death. Between 6:00 and 11:00 P.M. Tolan had checked into the Beverly Wilshire at around 10:00 P.M. Which gave him plenty of time to have done the deed.

  Flipping back to the autopsy report, Blackburn read through it and found a detailed description and photographs of the emoticon burned into Abby Tolan’s lower lip. If the medical reports for the other victims were equally as detailed, then anyone with access to them—authorized or not—would know the secret the Van Gogh task force had tried to keep.

  Todd Hastert had worked for the medical examiner’s office for three years. Could he have discovered that secret and passed it along to Janovic? Could Janovic have somehow turned around and told Tolan? Or what about Jane Doe? She was at Janovic’s apartment. Could she be the connection?

  Out of the corner of his eye, Blackburn saw movement on the apartment building’s second-floor walkway. Two lowlifes, a man and a woman in scruffy street clothes, were walking along the railing that overlooked the pool, headed straight for apartment 2F.

  When they reached Hastert’s door, the man knocked. Pounded, actually. Blackburn could hear it echoing across the parking lot.

  “Hey, Todd! Open up!”

  When Hastert didn’t answer, the man pounded the door again while the woman jiggled the knob.

  Still no response.

  The man and woman said something to each other, then the man looked around to make sure no one was watching. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a wad of keys, selected one, then gestured to the woman.

  She reached into the handbag slung over her shoulder and pulled out what looked like a small ratchet wrench as the man inserted the key into the lock. Taking the wrench from her, he used it like a hammer, tapping it against the back edge of the key.

  A bump job. Blackburn was witnessing a B & E.

  As the man and woman opened the door and headed inside, Blackburn climbed out of his car and crossed the lot, moving past the pool to the stairway alcove.

  He was halfway to the second floor when he heard a scream.

  A woman’s scream.

  Blackburn bolted, taking the steps two at a time. When he reached the second-floor walkway, the door to 2F burst open and the woman tore out of it, heading in Blackburn’s direction, her expression a mixture of revulsion and terror.

  Blackburn pulled his weapon. “Police! Stop right there.”

  Surprise filled her eyes as she came to a sudden stop. He moved quickly to her and shoved her against the wall, face first, keeping an eye on the open doorway. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  The woman started crying now. “. . . still inside.”

  “W
hat happened in there? Why’d you scream?”

  “. . . He . . . there’s a . . .”

  Before she could finish, the man came through the doorway, a shell-shocked look on his face.

  Blackburn immediately leveled his Glock at him. “Down! Down on the ground! Now! Hands behind your head!”

  The man halted in his tracks and threw his hands up, lowering to his knees.

  “Don’t stop,” Blackburn told him. “Get all the way dow—”

  In a single, fluid motion, the woman brought her arm up, sweeping a hand back toward Blackburn’s face. He jerked back, but felt a sudden stinging sensation across his forehead. And just as he realized she was carrying a box cutter, blood began to fill his eyes and he stumbled back, hitting the railing.

  He brought his Glock around toward her, but his vision was blurred and she was moving too fast. Rushing forward, she slammed her palms against his chest and—

  —Blackburn lost his balance, falling backward over the railing. He tried to grab hold, but his fingers merely brushed the painted metal and he was suddenly hurtling downward, blinded now by the blood in his eyes, legs and arms flailing.

  Time seemed suspended as he waited for the impact, certain that the moment his head hit the cement he’d be—as his old man used to say—deader than a squashed frog.

  Then something amazing happened.

  The impact came, and it hurt, but it wasn’t cement he hit. It was water. Glorious, piss-contaminated, unchlorinated, hasn’t-been-cleaned-in-a-month pool water. And before he knew it he was instinctively sucking in a breath—

  —as the water surrounded him and he plunged deep into the ice-cold swamp.

  BY THE TIME he managed to get back to the surface, the two lowlifes were long gone. Blood started to fill his eyes again and he realized she had cut him pretty good. An inch and a half lower and he’d probably be a blind man.

  He stuck his head back in the water, clearing away the blood, knowing he had to be inviting a serious infection. He then brought his arm up against his forehead, trying to stop the flow with his coat sleeve.