Me, Myself and Why? (5 page)

And here, in Minneapolis, courtesy of Officer Rivers’s iPod:

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,/And yet methinks I have astronomy;/But not to tell of good or evil luck,/Of plagues, of dearths, or season’s quality.

“Oh, fuck me till I cry.” George sighed. He disliked Shakespeare. Me, I could take or leave the Bard; I just wanted to figure out what the sonnets had to do with anything. So far nobody had a clue.

In keeping with our mysterious fair-haired serial killer, all the sonnets had been printed somewhere on ordinary copy paper with a run-of-the-mill printer—zillions of possibilities in Minnesota alone.

“Maybe a college professor?” Lynn was asking, rereading the sonnet on her screen. “Or a—I dunno, a poet? An artist?”

“A dumbass psycho nutbag?” George asked, raking his fingers through his hair. “Welcome to the info age, baby. You don’t have to have any time in college to pump out Shakespearean sonnets. All you have to do is Google.”

Annoyingly, that was a good point.

But this time,
this
time, there was something new. Thank goodness, finally, hallelujah, something new. The female, vic one (I’m sorry to sound so cold, but I had to call them something until they got ID’d), had the front page of the
Star Tribune
pinned to her chest . . . from January 1, 2003.

Vic two, the shorter of the men, also had paper pinned to his shirt—a desk calendar from December 15, 2003. And vic three, the tall, fat one, had a poster of—of—

“Is that what I think it is?” George asked, covering his mouth so the other cops wouldn’t see him smirk. But heavens knew I was used to it.

“It’s a poster of the Three Tenors.”

“Stapled to his forehead!”

“The big jerk,” I muttered.

“Ah, come on, Cadence, what’s your beef against big boy singers?” George squatted by the body and peered closely at the poster. “Y’know, you ought to let yourself go once in a while. ‘Big jerk’? Call him an asshole. Call him a sick fuck. Call him a twisted—”

“Why now?” I mused. I was as close to the body as I could safely get without messing up evidence. Same again: stab wound to the chest. No defensive wounds. How was he stabbing them without their fighting back?

“Weird,” a new voice said, and I looked up. Then straightened in a hurry. “They don’t ever fight him. Weird.”

“Jerry,” I began warningly.

“Weird weird weird.”

“You better behave.”

“Oh shit on a brick!” my partner exploded. “Who let
you
past the tape?”

Our colleague, Jerry Nance, blinked big wet hurt eyes at us. He was dressed like a typical fed, in what looked like an off-the-rack suit, black socks, loafers, and a boring solid blue tie. Only George and I knew he had meticulously made the suit by hand, and it had taken months. The suit concealed dozens of hidden pockets.

He was slender, tall, and balding. His high forehead was sunburned and peeling; his pale blue eyes were watery and vague. He looked, moved, and spoke like an amiable midwesterner. He was, in fact, from Italy, spoke nine languages, and had three college degrees and an IQ of 162.

He had the soul of a clerk, and lived for making lists, examining evidence, putting things in their place, and relentlessly alphabetizing everything he could get his hands on.

He was brilliant and invaluable at crime scenes.

He was also a kleptomaniac.

“How long have you been here?” I asked, dreading the answer.

He blinked. “Just got here.”

“Then what’s . . .
this
?” I groped for his suit pocket and withdrew . . . the wrapper to a pack of Sno Balls.

“Jerry, oh good sweet Christ!” George looked like he was going to make Jerry eat the Sno Ball wrapper, and I moved so I was between them.

“Where’d you get it, Jer?”

“The trash can by the door.”

“You got that from the scene?” Lynn asked, horrified. “You—you took that out of the trash can at a scene we’re still processing? But—”

“Bad Jerry!” George was yelling, trying to reach around me to punch Jerry’s balding head. “Bad bad bad! We’ve been over this! And over it! You idiotic pervy nerdy sticky-fingered asshole!”

“It’s not the killer’s,” Jerry explained. “A customer from the bar left it.” I had no idea how Jerry knew that; I only knew he was correct. He was always right about stuff like that. As I said, invaluable on scene. Also aggravating—he couldn’t
not
lift something.

George and I knew how important Jerry Nance was to BOFFO by the complete lack of trouble he got in when he interfered with crime scenes. But the locals were staring, so I got moving.

“Thank you, Agent Nance,” I said with exquisite charm and politeness. “I—I hadn’t realized your point until you, um, acted it out by showing us how the killer, um, didn’t eat Sno Balls at the scene.”

Jerry blinked at me again. “He didn’t eat anything. But he read the crossword and did the whole thing in—”

“Fas-ih-fuckin’-ating,” George said. “Get lost, Nance. Go count staplers in the office supply store across the street.”

Jerry brightened and hurried away. I struggled to get back to my train of thought. Ah! The poster. “Why change the MO so quickly?”

“Because he thinks we’re stupid.”

“And why is he—or she—escalating?”

“What are you, new in school? Why do they all escalate? They get off on being God. Who could give that up? Believe me, I know of what I speak,” George added, but I didn’t rise to the bait. I had zero interest in how George had ended up in BOFFO. Shiro knew but wouldn’t tell me. It was probably just as well.

Besides, he was right. Our killer was escalating and sowing more clues because he was frustrated—we, the stupid cops and Feebs, weren’t getting it. So he had to show us. And show us. And show us.

And he was escalating because he thought we were stupid, unworthy of his genius, and besides—he was God in his universe. We were only the audience.

I sighed and stood. “George, get on the horn with Michaela and make sure the other victims in the Dakotas didn’t have any paperwork on them.”

“But you know damned well they—”

“Just call, okay?” I puffed hair out of my eyes and made a conscious effort to lower my voice. “Will you just please follow procedure without being asked three times? Or five? Or agreeing you’ll do it if I show you my breasts?”

“
Will
you show me your breasts?”

“George . . .”

“Okay, okay, just don’t bring Shiro here, for Christ’s sake.” He was holding his hands up and backing away from me. “I’m doing it, okay? I don’t think I’ve said okay this much in my entire life, okay, but I’m doing it, okay? So just calm down, okay?”

As if Shiro would ever get her hands dirty pounding George’s face into new and interesting shapes. Ah well. A girl could dream.

“This probably isn’t the time or place,” Clapp said cheerfully, “but are we still on for tonight?”

Ah! Tonight. Yes, after running into each other at dozens of crime scenes, Clapp had finally asked me out. I’d said yes, which was proof that I was crazy. See, Jim Clapp didn’t know about my sisters. He just thought I was part of some elite FBI bad-guy unit. Also he was cute and single. And so was I. Well, single, anyway. Sort of.

Clapp had wild red hair which stuck up in all directions, no matter how much gel he lathered on it. He was famous for his gel. . . . He kept three tubes in his cruiser and God only knew how many in his locker. He had the pale face of the natural redhead, and gobs of freckles. He looked like Opie. Opie who could bench 270. He had to have his suits custom made, which was awful on his salary.

“Yeah.” George leered. “Are ya?”

With an effort, I ignored my partner. “Yes, of course. Why don’t I pick you up at the Cop Shop? Who wants to fight rush hour just to drive to Burnsville?” I was a sucker for gobs of pasta and mojitos, so I had established two days ago it was Buca Di Beppo or nothing.

“Cop Shop it is . . . seven o’clock okay?”

“Sure,” I replied, hoping one of my sisters wouldn’t arrive by then. I was nuts, agreeing to dinner with someone who had no idea I was clinically insane.

I was lonesome, too. So. There was that to consider.

Lynn was saying something, but I was being rude and not listening. I had turned to look at the crime scene again. There was something about it. Well, there’s something about
every
scene. Even at the most banal, even at a scene I’d

(we’d)

seen a dozen times before, something always reached out and plucked at

(us)

me.

Even in domestics, the most commonplace violent crime, something plucked. Wife beater crossed state lines and killed her in Minnesota? There wasn’t a cop who’d been on the force two years who hadn’t seen dozens of domestics. But why that night, why that woman, why that city? Why did they move? Why did the stress of unpacking not set him off, but the stress of her being late with McDonald’s did?

Like I said before: Why now? Why these guys? Why this spot? Why again?

But this. The ThreeFer Killer. This was something else. And I didn’t know what it was. It was like a tickle in my brain that wouldn’t leave me alone. Tickle, heck—it was a
fishhook
in my brain that wouldn’t leave me alone, digging and churning and scraping and—

I’m sorry. That was a disgusting image, wasn’t it?

Could it be—was there something almost . . .
familiar
about this setup? The scenes in Pierre, Des Moines, and Minot? Familiar beyond the obvious?

Mysteries, mysteries.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps there wasn’t a mystery here at all

(oh, but that’s impossible)

it’s possible that you already know everything you need to solve the crime

(it’s not true it’s not it’s)

Go to sleep, Cadence.

“We’ve . . .

“. . . we have seen

Chapter Six

“This before.”

Clapp’s head tilted; I doubted he’d heard my dry voice before. George had, though, and was sidling close to me, a pained expression on his face.

“What the fuck are
you
doing here, Shiro, you horrible horrible thing?” George was smiling at me. Well. Showing his teeth. Odious man.

“As I said, we have seen this before. There is something here.”

“Duh, there’s something here. The Three goddamned Tenors are here, another stupid sonnet is here, not to mention a hundred cops who have no idea how completely fucked-up crazy you are. Will you please pretty please let Cadence come back now?”

It was amusing that Cadence had no idea why she had been partnered with George, why he never went off on her, why he respected her (as much as he could) and not anyone else at BOFFO. I knew but would not tell. George was afraid of me. He was right to be afraid of me.

“Pretty please?” He was still babbling.

I gave him a long stare, and, since “sociopath” wasn’t a synonym for “stupid,” he actually backed off a step and dropped his gaze. Really, Cadence was too easy on this thug.

“I cannot let her back right now; she is no use when in denial.”
Cadence, Cadence. What a child you are.

I ducked under more crime tapes to take a closer look.

The Three Tenors.

January 1, 2003.

December 15, 2003.

Three victims—again. Stabbed through the heart—again. Left with calendars and posters—something new.

Something new in Minnesota.

Something new where I lived with my sisters. Where the
three of us
lived.

I walked past Clapp and said, “Our date is off.” If I were nicer, the stricken look on his face might have moved me. But I am not. And so it did not.

“Wha—Wait. Cadence? You look funny. Are you feeling all right?”

He was not talking to
me
, so I ignored him. I turned in time to see Agent Nance on his knees, carefully going over the ground in front of the trash with the methodical, tireless precision he brought to everything. A man I could appreciate, though the compulsive stealing was puzzling. Ah well. A problem for another day.

I passed Cadence’s local officer friend and said, “She warned you no fewer than six times.”

Lynn, standing in approved cop mode (arms on hips, eyes narrow and squinty), did a double take. A silly, clichéd double take, like this was a comedy instead of real life. “What?”

“Six times, Officer Rivers. Your warnings. Six. And she should not have had to, even once. Thirty-eights are awful in the field. Just awful. It has been documented. Many times.”

“Cadence, are you feeling all right?”

I managed not to roll my eyes. “You deserved worse.” I paused, considering. “Though I am glad you lived. It would have been annoying and not at all cost-effective to pay your family death benefits and hire and train a new recruit.”

Then—ugh! She was touching me.
They
were touching me. “I think it’s the heat,” Clapp said, looming on my left.

“You look pale. Are you gonna throw up, honey?” The female officer menacingly clutched my right hand.

“I am
not
going to throw up.
I
—”

“I wouldn’t do that,” George warned them, smiling.

“—have
never
thrown up. Now take your hands off me at—at—”

Geese.

“I have a point to make. We have seen this before. Stop touching me at once. My point—I have a point and you will
listen
!”

Geese.

Clapp’s slimy grip, tightening.
Too close
. Rivers’s wide face, leering.
Coffee breath.
George was the only one carefully backing off, which for some reason made me feel

geese

more out of control.

There were three geese flying overhead. Were they Canada geese? Oh God, were they? I could not I did not I would not would not would not I I I I I I iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Chapter Seven

this before.”

“This before.”