Daughter of Darkness (4 page)

    As was his wont, Quinlan-in his arrogance-overstepped the bounds. He asked the friendly folks at McLean to start feeding him agents that they would like to get rid of. He said they would be perfect subjects. He could scramble their brains and leave them little more than empty human shells. He'd have perfect test subjects, and they'd pension out men they'd come to distrust or despise. Fine. The plan sounded great.

    But Quinlan's experiments with mind control-this was in his fourth year of enjoying the sunny climes of Southern California-went too far. He locked two unpopular agents in a room. He gave each a World War II German Luger (Quinlan had an eye for fashion even in guns) and then started pulsing microwave orders to each of them. He had been preparing them for weeks with electroshock and LSD. Now, he needed a practical demonstration that the microwave audiograms would produce their desired effect.

    He had a relentless heart, Quinlan did, and a ruthless imagination.

    

    

    Sandra raised the gun, but she didn't fire.

    The homeless man stood unmoving, a zombielike deadness covering his face.

    She kept the gun up in the air, pointed directly at the homeless man's chest.

    But she didn't fire.

    Quinlan flipped a switch, activating the audio microwave command. Back in his CIA days, there'd been a lot of staff jokes about how he was trying to make up for being such a prick by using a microwave to make lunch for his staffers. He'd overheard the joke. He wasn't offended. He'd merely found it stupid. He was using microwaves because it was a short radio wave and therefore a perfect means of transmitting subliminal commands to his subjects. Microwaves could pass through the elements (fog, smoke, rain) that block light waves. The Russians had quite successfully used microwave spying devices in Moscow's American Embassy. He was using microwaves as one means of controlling his subjects.

    Quinlan pressed the red button and said, "You don't have long, Sandra. He's going to move on you suddenly-and then it'll be too late. He'll be too quick and strong for you. Remember the other day, when the three men raped you and beat you? He'll do even worse, Sandra. He has a knife in his pocket." The rape Quinlan referred to had been "imaged" into her head with a combination of drugs and virtual reality. It had apparently been quite convincing. It had taken several injections of Paxil to calm her down. She was one of those people who were almost immune to the magic of proactive psychiatric drugs. You had to dose her heavily.

    She fired three shots.

    Bam bam bam.

    No hesitation.

    The heavily-drugged man did not scream or even clutch his chest. He simply dropped to the tiled floor.

    There was no reaction from Sandra, either. She was now as immobile as the man had been. She hadn't even lowered the gun yet. It was held straight out in front of her, as if she were about to embark on firing target practice.

    "Very good, Sandra," Quinlan said. "Very, very good."

    Now it was time to reward both of them. He would lead her to the elevator and take her up to the top floor of his clinic where they would make love in his handsomely appointed apartment.

    Sandra had been a very good girl, and she deserved his gratitude.

    

    

    The Econo-Nite was a V-shaped stucco place with twenty-six rooms and an office with a severely cracked front window. The crack came from a bullet the last man to rob the place had left behind. The Econo-Nite was stuck up almost as often as the Cubs lost ball games, which was to say a lot. Coffey had brought numerous fares here. They all ran to lower-echelon salesmen on the arms of lower-echelon hookers.

    Room 127 was around back, next to a row of bright thrumming soda machines. Moths kept hurling themselves at the dirty yellow light above the exterior stairway. There were only four cars parked on this side of the motel. Two of them were shiny and new. Maybe the Econo-Nite was moving up in the world.

    Coffey pulled into the slot and turned off the motor.

    She said, "Mind if we just sit here a minute?" Her voice was trembling.

    He smiled and tapped the cab meter. "This is going to cost you a lot of money."

    "Do you ever hug strangers?"

    "Every chance I get."

    "I'm not coming on or anything. I-it'd just be nice if somebody'd hold me a minute."

    "That's another service that goes with the cab ride. Free hugs."

    He took inordinate pleasure in holding her. She was woman-child, dear and precious and fragile. It had been so damned long since he'd held anybody he'd cared about. He'd tried a few women, but they'd been blind dates and they hadn't been any more interested in him than he'd been in them. He made sure that he held her chastely. That's what she wanted and needed right now, a nonsexual hug. Hell, maybe that was what
he
needed, too. And the fact that she looked so much like Janice…

    "Thanks," she said after a time, pulling away. "And thanks for not coming on."

    He nodded.

    She looked at the door of Room 127. "I'm afraid to go in there."

    "Then let me go in."

    She shook her head. "No. I appreciate the offer. But I'm the one who needs to go in. Will you wait for me?"

    "Of course."

    She opened the door and got out. The night smelled of autumn. It was a good smell, actually; clean and fresh. At least to Coffey.

    She leaned back in and said, "How about one more hug?"

    "Well, I suppose," he said with a mock sigh. "If you twist my arm." He scooted over to the passenger window.

    She clung even tighter than she had previously. He lost himself in the fragrance of her hair. The softness of her breasts pressed against him. His groin started to send out unmistakable signals. He eased himself out of the hug before he ruined the moment.

    "I'll go in with you if you want me to." he said. "I don't mind."

    "Thanks again. But I'd better do this alone." She peeked back in. Though she was an elegant and very adult woman, there was still some girl left in her, and he liked that very much. "Wish me luck."

    He gave her the thumbs up.

    She closed the car door quietly and then started walking slowly-reluctantly-toward Room 127.

    She paused at the door and knocked. The knock was so soft, he couldn't hear it, just see it. She knocked again.

    After a time, she pushed the door inward. Apparently, it had not been locked.

    While he waited, he looked up at the sky. Rain was still on its way. The moon drifted behind thunderheads. It felt as if the temperature had dropped five degrees since they'd left the shelter.

    The door to Room 127 opened. The woman stood in the interior shadows. He could barely see her. She waved him inside.

    He got out of the car and walked up to the door. She didn't say anything, just opened the door wider so that he could walk inside.

    She hadn't turned on any lights in the bedroom area. Light from the bathroom spilled into the shabby room, enough that Coffey had no trouble seeing the man. He wore only a pair of briefs. He was sprawled on his back across the bed. Hairy and thin, he looked no more than twenty-five. His arms were covered with tattoos. One of them was iridescent and seemed to glow in the faint light from the bathroom. It depicted a woman's skull.

    But nothing about the man was more compelling than the knife that had been stabbed deep into his chest. From here, the knife appeared to be nothing more exotic than an inexpensive butcher knife. But inexpensive or not, it had done its job. His chest hair glistened with blood.

    Coffey said, "Close the door."

    She did so and then came over and stood by him.

    "Ever seen him before?"

    She looked at him. Her voice was shaking. "I don't know. But why would I pick this motel and this room if I didn't know what I'd find here?"

    Her implication was clear. As soon as he'd seen the man on the bed, he'd had the same thought. Murderers came in all shapes and sizes. Even lovely women committed murder sometimes. And sometimes they were so shocked by their actions that they suffered from temporary amnesia. He'd seen it happen more than a few times in his cop years.

    Coffey walked over to the open clothes rack. The man had hung everything up neatly. He left everything the way it was. He didn't want to disturb the crime scene any more than absolutely necessary.

    He went over and clicked on the table lamp on the right side of the bed. The woman jerked as if he'd shot her with something. She obviously didn't want to see the dead man any more clearly than she already had.

    She went over to the stained armchair and sat down. She put her face in her hands, the way she might have at the scary part of a horror movie. He could see her eyes gleaming between her fingers. She was afraid to look but
had
to.

    Coffey spent a few minutes checking the bed and the area around it. People dropped things sometimes. But not this time. He found nothing.

    He went into the bathroom. The tiles were coming off the shower wall and the toilet bowl was stained with rust. The hot water handle on the sink was missing. Fun place.

    He spent a full three minutes examining the sink more carefully. The sink was white. Only close inspection yielded what he was looking for.

    He called out to the woman to come into the bathroom.

    When she stood next to him, he said, "I'd like to see your hands."

    "My hands?"

    "Yes."

    She put her hands in his. He brought her closer to the light bar over the medicine cabinet. It took him a while but he found it.

    "What're you looking for?" she said.

    "Blood."

    "Blood?"

    "You washed up very carefully. But there're still some traces of blood in your fingernails. The same with the sink. Traces of blood."

    "Then that means-"

    He shook his head. "Right now, we don't
know
what that means. We need to keep looking around this room."

    He went back to the room with the bed and started searching again. He tried desk drawers, the closet, and the space atop the window air-conditioning unit. He kept a handkerchief wrapped around his fingers. No prints. He crawled under the bed and felt around, and then he went back to the bathroom and looked in the cabinet under the sink. He lifted the toilet lid and peeked in there. And then he opened the narrow three-shelf towel closet.

    That was where he found the dress. It was rolled up and stuffed in the back behind a stack of towels. His hand got wet and sticky just touching it.

    On the next shelf he found the small overnight bag. It was smeared with blood.

    He carried both the dress and the overnight bag into the other room. He put them down on the edge of the bed.

    The woman looked stunned when she saw the dress. "I… recognize that somehow. I think it's… mine."

    "You or someone got the dress bloody and then changed clothes."

    She looked at him, tears filling her eyes. "Does this mean I killed him?"

    "I don't know."

    "Oh, God. You have to help me."

    She slipped her arms around him and clung to him with life-and-death desperation.

    He held her for a time, and then she said quietly, "Can we wait for them out in the car?"

    "Wait for who?"

    "For the police."

    "I'm not calling the police. At least not yet."

    "You're not?"

    He took her hand gently. "Look. We need to talk about some things. Maybe we can figure a few things out before we contact a lawyer. The lawyer comes before the police."

    "Where'll we go?"

    "I've got an extra bedroom. You can stay there tonight. We'll be fresh in the morning and we can figure out what we need to do."

    She touched her hand to his cheek. "You're taking a chance. I could be a murderer."

    "Yes," he said. "I know. Now let's get out of here."

    It was misting when they got back outside. They walked to the car. Just before he got in, Coffey scanned the parking lot. Police training.

    A Ford van was parked next to a dumpster. There was a small black box of some kind on the roof of the van. Next to the Ford was a battered ten-year-old Pontiac with Rebel license plates. And next to that was a newer model Chevrolet station wagon.

    Then he noticed the silver Jaguar. It was cruising down toward them, a classic of design and engineering, altogether the wrong context for such a vehicle. The driver was a young blond man in a blue blazer, white shirt, and yellow necktie. He watched them with obvious interest, staring at them openly until he passed them. Then he disappeared around the corner.

    Coffey was wondering about the Jag when a carload of people whipped into the spot next to him. They were all dressed up in square dancing costumes. They were well into their sixties and looked as if they were having a great time. One of the older ladies, who looked sweet and cute in her cowgirl duds, said, "We won the dance contest tonight!"

    

    

    "Here we are."

    He pulled into the alley leading to his garage. He edged the car inside and then shut off the lights. The garage smelled of motor oil and dead grass clinging to the power mower bag.

    There was a narrow walk leading to the back door. The misting had stopped, and it was actually kind of pretty now, chilly but in an invigorating way, the sky starry and the grass dewy.