Blood of Others (27 page)

Sydowski sat
at his desk in homicide polishing
his bifocals with his tie, reciting the positives as if they were prayers. Bit
by bit they were getting closer.

They had gone from zero leads
when he had caught Iris Wood’s case, to a suspect pool of 2,769 names, that
shrunk to 600, but they still had a long way to go. They had reduced the pool
to some eighty possibles. That was the number of men who met the criteria so
far.

Each name on the list had flown
on Five Star Skyways between Baltimore and San Francisco in the week before the
murder. Each man had rented a car from one of the four rental companies at SFO
offering a Ford Taurus or Mercury Sable.

Sydowski slipped on his glasses,
thumbing through the files, appreciating that he was working from a premise
based on solid trace evidence, the shaky eyewitness account of a street
criminal, and his own gut instincts.

Following this line could prove
futile. The variables were endless. The killer may not have rented a car in
that period, or rented one at all. Or, he may have rented elsewhere. He could
have been someone’s passenger. Could have borrowed or stolen a car. Could fit
any one of a thousand other scenarios.

Trust the physical facts. The
trace evidence linked the killer to BWI, it put him on a Five Star jet, it put
him in a late-model rental Ford or Mercury, and it put him at Stern Grove and
in the bridal shop.

Sydowski believed in physical
evidence.

The car rental agencies
cooperated, but it had taken several days to amass all the contracts with
applicable names. Security officials had to make priority requests to their
respective record-storage sites in cities across the country.  In many
cases the original records had to be searched manually.

Now they were going hard on the
eighty names, running them with police agencies in Maryland, the District of
Columbia, Delaware, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Again, they ran them through
California databases, parolees, state and federal prison records, cross-checked
them with employee, policy holder, and claimant lists of American Federated
Insurance. They pumped all the relevant names through NCIC.

Sydowski finally allowed Linda at
the VICAP terminal, making general queries for similarities in all unsolved
ritual murders in the Bay Area and all of the northern California cases.
Intense. She made a series of queries on the region’s unsolved homicides:

all single white females aged
20 to 40

all cases involving mutilation
but no sexual assault

all cases involving a
suspected police officer

all cases where the victim was
publicly displayed

Turgeon would remove the pen
clamped in her teeth to make notes. She was familiar with most of the files.
Sydowski still refused to make a full submission to VICAP. He was satisfied
with their progress. Didn’t see a need for outside help at this point.

As the VICAP keyboard clicked,
Sydowski glimpsed the envelope Louise had given him for Reggie Pope. Peeking
out of his jacket pocket, reminding him to call personnel for Reggie’s current
address in the Tenderloin.

He thought of Wyatt. What the
hell was
he
doing? Sydowski had heard nothing more on Iris Wood’s
computer from him. Just as well. The less he saw of Wyatt, the better his life
would be.

Turgeon tossed her notebook on
her desk and plopped in her chair.

“Walt, we’re spinning our wheels
here.” She opened a can of diet soda with a hiss. “I talked to Dee, the VICAP
coordinator at Golden Gate. She’s poised for us to submit the entire case to
Quantico. A formal priority submission. Put everything out there now. The
hold-back. The shoe, BWI, the stun gun, mutilation.”

“Be patient.”

“Walt. Damn it, there has got to
be a link.”

“We’re gaining on him my way.
Look where we started and look where we are. We can’t risk anything at this
point. If it leaks, we lose him.”

“I’ll help complete every one of
the ninety-five questions in the submission, Walt.”

“Linda, please. Humor an old
man.”

“Excuse me, Inspectors?”

Horace Meeker materialized next
to their desks, looking somewhat out of place without his white lab smock.
Dressed in a jacket, sky-blue button-down shirt, navy tie loosened, collar
button undone, allowing his neck to relax. He had a small valise. Blinking
behind his thick lenses. “I think it’s important for us to talk right now.”

They went to an empty homicide
interview room and closed the door. Horace extracted a thin file folder from
his valise, opened it to another lab report. Sydowski noticed it was written in
longhand, as if hurried.

“I just came from the airport. I
did some on-site checking with the car rental agencies there, just first-hand
inquiries for confirmation.”

“And?” Sydowski said.

“I got it and thought you should
know right away.”

“Whaddya got, Horace?” Linda set
her soft drink down.

“I am confident you can limit
your suspect pool to one car rental agency. The new one, United Coast.”

“How did you do that?”

“Shampoo.”

“Shampoo?” Turgeon said.

“I did more work on the auto
carpet fibers, using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence.”

“Right, XRF.”

“Also did some optical microscopy
and polymer characterization, so I could check elements on individual carpet
fibers, you know, like material used in production or added in post-production,
treatments, and cleaners.”

Turgeon pulled out her notebook.
“Like shampoo.”

“Correct. Like the shampoo used
by United Coast to clean its rentals at San Francisco International.” Horace,
was studying his pages of notes. “I checked with United Coast’s drums. Called
the supplier. UC uses an industrial brand that contains a slightly higher than
average level of two-butoxyethanol. According to the NIOSH reviews,
two-butoxyethanol is a type of glycol ether, a quick-drying colorless liquid
used in organic solvents, for things like household and industrial cleaning
solutions.”

“Like a stain remover, stain
protector?”

“Sort of. Anyway, it’s a safe bet
our fiber comes from a United Coast rental.”

“How safe?” Sydowski said. “How
do we know the cleaner is not domestic and could have been used to clean any
car anywhere?”

Horace removed his big glasses
from his big head and rubbed his tired eyes before replacing the glasses.

“Walt, you must have lucky stars,
because it turns out that United Coast, being a new car rental agency, is
field-testing a brand-new auto carpet shampoo.”

“That so?”

“And they started two weeks ago
in one location in the entire U.S. Their outlet at San Francisco
International.”

Turgeon flipped the pages of her
notes. “That’s twenty-one names. You brought it down to twenty-one names.”

“Horace.” The gold crown in
Sydowski’s grin glinted. “That’s terrific.”

“It started with you, Walt.”

“How?”

“You noticed the road paint was
new. Everyone missed it. That’s old-fashioned detective work.” Horace looked at
Turgeon. “Don’t ever let this guy fool you. He knows what he’s doing.”

“Some days maybe.” Turgeon
smiled.

Later that day, Sydowski and
Turgeon talked with United Coast’s director of security, who arranged to
provide them all documentation on each of the twenty-one men who fit the
criteria.

Marshaling the actual Taurus and
Sable units the men had rented was going to take time. Most were in use, or had
been returned to other United outlets.

“Locate them wherever they are
and pull them out of circulation for us, please,” Sydowski said.

Investigators knew any crime
scene evidence or trace in the car would be contaminated. Sydowski told
United’s executive office that it was imperative the company get every suspect
car back to San Francisco as soon as possible and that it was “critical they
not be cleaned in any way.”

The bonus was that United Coast
had a state-of-the-art photo security system. Before departing its lot, a
customer had to stop at a barricade, turn his or her face left to a stationary
eye-level security camera that required them to hold up the rental agreement. A
photograph was snapped, along with the time, date, and vehicle information.
Then the barricade was raised.

By that evening, Sydowski and
Turgeon had posted twenty-one photographs from United Coast on a large wheeled
chalkboard in the homicide detail. Under each photograph they had posted the
rental agreement, the copy of each man’s driver’s license, and other details as
their records checks found them.

Energized by their break in the
case, Sydowski and Turgeon ordered a pizza to the Hall. They were alone, saying
little, staring at the board. Sydowski eventually withdrew into his thoughts. He
walked to a window, standing there for several moments before returning.

“I think we’ve gone as far as we
can go on our own. I think now it’s time Linda,” he said, studying the eyes on
the board staring at him. “Time to submit it all to VICAP, with details of
these men as potential suspects.”

“Hallelujah.”

Turgeon alerted the FBI VICAP
coordinator at the San Francisco field office on Golden Gate. Sydowski got a
VICAP form and began answering its questions on details about the victim, the
crime, the killer, pulling every applicable factor from Iris Wood’s case,
including his hold-back, BWI, the shoe, everything. Looking at the faces on the
board somehow made it all the more real, convincing Sydowski this guy was
unstoppable.

Within 24 hours, the Iris Wood case
would be entered into the VICAP database maintained by the FBI in Quantico,
Virginia. A VICAP coordinator for the West Region would immediately begin
comparing their file against all other entries, keying on specific data in the
crime that might reveal a signature, or pattern similar to other murders, which
could point to a single suspect.

It was nearly 2 A.M. when they
finished.

Turgeon had put her head down on
her desk. She was asleep. Sydowski stood to stretch his stiffened muscles. He
studied the board, feeling the righteousness of his duty rising as he bored
into each pair of eyes.

You reached out of nowhere and
took her. I will reach into nothing and find you. You’re here. I know you’re
here. I can feel you. I can smell you. We’re coming for you.

One by one, Sydowski stared at
the men on the board. One by one, they stared back, including the scarred face
of Harlan Wells.

The alias used by Eugene Vryke.

Wyatt’s PC
in his apartment was a powerful
customized top-of-the-line unit. He fired it up.

If he was going into unauthorized
battle, he would keep it outside the SFPD. His police laptop sat idle on his
kitchen table. Safe.

As his computer trilled and
beeped to life, Wyatt pulled a cold beer from his refrigerator, took a long
drink, put his feet up on his desk, leaned back in his swivel chair. He opened
the padded envelope from Gricks and slid out the contents: four CDs marked
A
to
D
in felt pen, six floppies, marked
1
to
6,
and the
thick little booklet. He began reading. Gricks explained that he was going to
guide Wyatt by a pre-recorded instructional CD. The booklet advised Wyatt to
listen carefully and pay attention to details. He was to start by inserting CD
A.

“All right.” Wyatt slid the CD
into his computer. David Bowie’s “Modern Love” flowed through Wyatt’s sound
system; then Gricks appeared on Wyatt’s screen, staring into the camera above
his own monitor. Hippie hair and beard nodding; he hummed with the lyrics as he
worked on his keyboard.

You know, Gricks, it’s a thin
line between genius and insanity. Wyatt swallowed some beer. The song ended.

“Hello, Wyatt,” Gricks continued
working. “Better record the date and time. Everything is programmed from your
system’s clock to self-encrypt, then self-delete five days from now. Call it my
insurance.”

Wyatt noted the time.

“Now enter the names of any four
of the seven dwarfs.”

What?

“You’ve got two minutes, or it
shuts down.”

Wyatt typed
Sleepy, Grumpy,
Doc,
and
Dopey.

“Good. Remember them in sequence.
Because that instruction will never be repeated. It’s your password, should
this hypothetical exercise go astray. You’ll recall our discussion on classic
Italian literature, the works of Dante? I’ve modified some of the classic
Italian theories we discussed to give you some twenty different strategies to
find your target. Do not make any attempt to employ these strategies from the
damaged system or anything linked to the owner’s on-line voyages. Understand?”

Wyatt sipped some beer.
Right.

“Outside of this ‘exercise,’
should you come across anything from your target’s internal arsenal, anything,
consider it gold and immediately go to Disk five.”

Got it. Disk five.
Wyatt
made a note.

“Ben,” Gricks steepled his
fingers. “I’m trying to get you inside undetected. By stealth. So you can grab
him, if he’s the one. He will beat most of the strategies. He is beyond a
run-of-the-mill Web-page defacer, or virus weaver. He functions at a
dangerously elevated level. It’s crucial you follow my instructions to the
letter. Let’s get started.”

Wyatt set out on one of the most
complex and challenging probes he had ever experienced. He was shut down at
every turn. At one stage he almost cracked his keyboard in frustration. By 2:15
A.M., he could not go on any longer. Six hours had passed. An avalanche of
fatigue and futility rolled over him. After a quick hot shower, he fell into
bed, feeling utterly defeated. He had tried nine of the twenty strategies
Gricks had set up. All in vain.

He lay there depleted, feeling
dejection coiling around him, crushing him with doubts about his abilities,
himself, resurrecting the ghosts of Reggie Pope, the kid. Then he saw Olivia
smiling upon him. Her lovely eyes and face watching over him from the small
portrait on his nightstand. The work of a street artist on the Wharf. It warmed
him and he fell asleep.

Wyatt’s phone rang at 6:55 A.M.
It was Sydowski.

“Get your sorry ass to the Hall
for an eight o’clock case-status meeting.”

“All right.”

The fourth-floor meeting room was
filled with nearly three dozen detectives, including more brass than previous
status meetings. A lot of new faces. Late arrivals were forced to stand.

“We’re going to keep this as
brief as possible.” Lieutenant Gonzales took a hit of coffee from his mug. “We
got a break. We’re going to tune the investigation accordingly, turn up the
heat. I’m putting most of my team on this and we’re drawing more bodies from
General Works.”

“Can you say what the lead is?”
somebody asked.

“We’ll tell you what you need to
know,” Sydowski said, rolling out the chalkboard displaying the suspects’
faces. Chairs squeaked in anticipation.

“Inspector Sydowski will update
you quickly.”

“We now have a primary suspect pool
of twenty-one men and we’re going to distribute files to each team of
detectives. You know the drill. Get your subject’s time line around the murder,
their whereabouts, then work on the résumé.” Sydowski plopped down a stack of
files on the suspects. “We’re going to be marshaling our first batch of rental
cars from United Coast’s airport outlet. The company is volunteering the cars
but they need to be coordinated and taken on a flatbed to Hunter’s Point. We’ve
been talking with the FBI and police in other jurisdictions, Las Vegas,
Phoenix, New York, Cincinnati, Miami, for starters. We’ve had some discussion
with those jurisdictions. Nothing concrete has popped. No links. Yet.”

“Think you got serial, a
traveler?” Somebody at the table said.

“That’s my belief.”

“What’s your link, Walt? We
understand he left a clean scene.”

“Don’t have it quite nailed yet,
but we have some strong indicators. The case was just submitted to VICAP.”

“What about her computer,
Inspector?”

“We’ve had some glitches on that
aspect of the investigation.” Wyatt’s head snapped up from his notepad. “The
FBI will take custody of her system. Special Agents, Cherry Daniel, who flew up
from San Diego, and Barry Hiltzer from Computer Intrusion in Hayward will
assume control. Cherry?”

“We’re taking her computer down
to the CART lab in San Diego today,” Cherry Daniel said. “We’ll examine it
there and do some analysis on all communication she sent or received through
it. And we’ll consult with NIPC at our headquarters in Washington.”

“Excuse me,” Wyatt said, “there’s
something you should know.”

Ignoring him, Sydowski gave the
FBI agents a warm, appreciative nod, telegraphing confidence. “That’s it for
now,” he said. “We’re fine, Inspector Wyatt.”

The meeting began breaking up.

Gonzales called out: “Those teams
assigned suspect files meet me in the homicide detail.”

“Sounds like you got a strong
break, Walt.”

“Everybody’s been working hard.”

Files were collected, bodies
began to shuffle out.

Wyatt sat there, dumbfounded,
exhausted, staring at his empty notebook. Sydowski worked through the crowd,
leaned down to Wyatt’s ear, barely containing his scorn. “You go see Leo for
your new assignment supercop, all right?”

The homicide receptionist called
out to Sydowski. “Walter, thought I’d catch you before you head out.” She
dropped her voice but Wyatt heard. “Nella from personnel called. Here’s
Reggie’s address in the Tenderloin.”

Reggie in the hospital bed,
his contempt for Wyatt echoing.
You stay the hell away from me.

Wyatt remained there for a long
time, swallowing the humiliation. It was premeditated. Sydowski wanted him
there so he could stick it to him in front of the largest group possible.
Everyone,
here’s the fuck-up that got my old pal shot and this is what I’m going to do
with him.
Forget the truth. Wyatt shook his head. How much more of this
could he stand?

It was a bitter walk to see
Gonzales.

“Ben, we need you to join our
guys at United Coast at the airport,” he said, “to help supervise the
transportation of the cars from the outlet to the SFPD for forensic
examination.” Gonzales was almost sympathetic. “Then I need you back here,
helping out with phone work.”

At United Coast, a couple of
uniforms in a radio car exchanged jokes and sports wisdom while Wyatt studied
his clipboard and kept to himself. Ford and Mercury engines growled as United
Coast’s crew inched the cars on a flatbed.

“So what’s up, man?” Wyatt asked.

A United staff member with a tag
over his heart that said DEWITT answered him. “Every one of these cars had to
be rented by a customer who flew in from Baltimore.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, man. And we’re roundin’ up
more.” Dewitt was signing a sheet for Wyatt when three cars were loaded onto
the flatbed. “I saw the paperwork in the office. Heard my supervisor talking to
some attorney.”

“How’s that again?”

“The SFPD asked for all our
Tauruses and Sables rented by dudes who flew in from BWI. So what’s up with
that, man?”

Baltimore.

Baltimore Washington
International served the Fort Meade area. Several military installations were
located there, including NSA, where Gricks said secret research was done on
INFERNO.

“Good question,” Wyatt said.