Mortal Fear (50 page)

It was Bob Anderson, calling from the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. I didnt hesitate or even try to soften the blow. With a guy like Bob, a man whos been in combat, you give him the truth and let him deal with it his own way. After a stunned silence, he asked a couple of questions in a voice that sounded colder than Brahmas digital facsimile. One was Did she suffer? I lied and told him Erin had not. After that, his only concern was for the living.

Satisfied that Drewe was all right for the time being, he focused on his wife and Patrick and Holly. He wanted to tell Margaret in person, but he was almost three hours from home. Most men would have given up there, but Bob decided to send a friend over to his housenot to console his wife but to cut the telephone line and head off any busybody neighbors who might take it into their heads to drive over and tell her the bad news. Before the wire could be cut, I was to call Margaret and tell her that Drewe and Erin had gone to Jackson on an errand. The prospect of telling this lie made me uneasy, but Bob didnt give me time to equivocate.

I felt like an infantryman being given orders by a veteran sergeant. When I reminded Bob that a crime like this might make the late news in Jackson, he said hed take care of that too. To my embarrassed relief, he did not question me in detail about who might have killed Erin. Either he suspected Patrick and did not want to voice those suspicions, or he suspected the truth and did not want to flay me long-distance. After he signed off, I realized that Erins death was a tragedy Bob had probably rehearsed many times over the years.

I know now that Ive rehearsed for it too, the way we do with any friend whose life is ruled by chance or driven by demons. Yet for her to die this way leaves me feeling ambushed by fate, as though a relative had survived cancer only to be run over by a truck. Steadying my shaking hands, I pick up the phone and dial the Anderson house.

Hello? Margaret says. Erin?

I feel like Ive connected to a parallel universe where physical events register only after a confusing time delay. Pulling the phone into the bathroom, I shut the door and say, This is Harper, Mrs. Anderson.

Oh. Is Erin there? She told me not to call, but its getting late. Im worrying myself into a migraine, Harper. She was acting so strangely.

Keep your voice steady,
says my instinct.
A mother can sense danger to her children like a shark smells blood
. Erins not here, Mrs. Anderson. Drewe either. They went to Jackson on some kind of shopping errand. They left a note, but they didnt say what they were after. I pause. What time did you see Erin?

She called around three-thirty and asked if I could keep Holly while she talked to Drewe about something.

My heartbeat skips, then starts to race.

You know me, Margaret goes on, I didnt want to butt in, so I didnt ask any questions.

Youve got Holly?

Lord, yes. She got so hungry I finally fed her supper. I know Erins finicky about what this girl eats, but I didnt have anything healthy so I gave her frozen pizza. Erin will just have to get over it.

For the first time tonight, tears well in my eyes. Im sure its okay, Mrs. Anderson.

This time Margaret says nothing. Just as I am about to speak, she blurts, Harper, is Erin going to leave Patrick?

Shes already left him,
says a manic voice in my head. I dont know, Mrs. Anderson. Theyve been having some problems, I think.

She cant leave him, Harper. She
cant
. That boy worships the ground she walks on. I want you to talk to her. She might listen to you.

Im squeezing the phone so hard that the skin on the back of my hand feels like it might split. Ill do what I can, Mrs. Anderson. I think youre doing the best thing you can just by keeping Holly. In fact, if she gets sleepy, why dont you just put her to bed over there?

Another silence. I hear you. All right, Ill do that. And you do what you can to straighten this mess out.

Yes, maam. Bye.

Bye-bye.

My heart is still racing, but my hands are steadier. Holly is safe. At least theres that. As silently as possible, I slip back into the bedroom. Drewes chest rises and falls with comforting regularity beneath the coverlet. Not wanting to wake her, I sit in a hard wooden rocker in one corner and resume my vigil.

Why in Gods name did Erin come to our house? If she called her mother at three-thirty, she did it right after I left her house. She told Margaret she had to talk to Drewe about something. What? Did she decide I didnt have the guts to tell Drewe the truth about Holly after all? Maybe. But even if she did, she would have given me a chance to do it. Maybe she decided that telling the truth would be a mistake after all. Did she rush after me to stop me? Unlikely. Her resolve to finally be rid of the lie was ironclad. So why did she come?

Then I see it. She must have decided that telling Drewe the truth was not my obligation, but hers. Drewe and I are husband and wife now; we werent at the time of the affair. But Drewe and Erin were sisters. And by that logic, Erins was the greater betrayal. Of all the alternatives, this is the noblest, and nobility was Erins predominant state of mind when I last saw her. Alive, I mean.

Rocking quietly in the dark, I recall the unalloyed panic that jolted me when I believed Holly unaccounted for. If she really had been missing, I would have been the one that required sedation. Children are stolen from parents every day in this country, by monsters as brutal as Brahma. I met two such parents in Chicago. And though Erin is lost to me now, to us all, I thank whatever god or fate exists that I am not now thrashing through the fields in search of my daughter, that Holly is safe and warm in the loving arms of her grandmother.

Is she?
whispers a voice in my head.
Are you sure?

The squeak of the rocker stops. Rising quickly, I go to the kitchen and look up the number of the Yazoo County sheriffs department, which I memorize.

Sheriff Buckner, please, I tell the dispatcher. This is Harper Cole, from Rain. About the double homicide.

After about a minute, Buckner comes on the line. What is it, Cole?

I talked to Dr. Anderson.

So did I. Just got off the phone with him.

I think you should get some men over to his house and watch until he gets home. Maybe all night.

Buckner spits, probably into a cup, and takes his time about answering. Doc told me he was going to have a friend of his take care of things.

Were not talking about the same thing, Sheriff. Erins three-year-old daughter is over there. I think she might be in danger. Especially if Bobs friend cuts off communication with the house. You hear what Im saying?

I can almost see Buckner snapping to attention in his chair. You telling me this serial killer might go after Bob Andersons grandchild?

Im saying theres no telling what he might do.

Christ! Youve stirred up some kind of shitstorm around here!

Will you do it?

Hell yes Ill do it! Im tempted to cordon off the place with a SWAT team.

Dont do that! If Mrs. Anderson sees cops, shell know somethings up. Shell start trying to call her neighbors. Can you keep your men out of sight?

You aint got to tell me my job, boy. Ill take care of it. By the way, Docs already got a plane lined up. He was talking to me from a car phone on the way to the Memphis airport.

I calculate quickly. How soon will he be here? Hour and a half?

More like thirty minutes. Bob Anderson dont fool around. He called whatever high roller he was meeting up there and got hold of a King Air. One of my deputiesll be waiting at the new airport for him.

God Almighty
. I look around the empty kitchen in a daze.

You there, Cole?

Yes.

Gotta go. I got a manhunt to run.

After hanging up the phone, I look in on Drewe again. Shes still out. But for how long? With Vistaril she could sleep eight more hours or wake up any minute. What am I going to do when she does? What can I tell her? Sooner or later the tough questions will be asked. Should we even stay here in the house? No. Drewe will want to stay at her parents house. But shes still going to wake up here. Bob could show up too. In fact, I should probably expect him. Hell take care of his wife first, but then hell want to see Erins body, wherever it is. After that, hell come here. To see where it happened. To convince himself that it
did
happen. And to find out who in holy hell is responsible.

One thing I do know: I dont want Drewe or Bob to have to face the abattoir that is my office. Drewe saw it once, and that was too much. I may not be able to wipe out the acts that led to Erins death, but I can damn sure scrub every last drop of blood out of that office. If I cant, I can repaint the goddamn thing by morning. Buckner and the FBI will probably crucify me for destroying evidence, but evidence hasnt led anyone to Brahma yet. From a cabinet in the laundry room I remove a gallon of Clorox, a bucket, some rubber gloves that are too small for my hands, and a mop, and carry them to my office door.

The smell hits me with more intensity than it did the first time. This is the coppery stench of death, the rotten fruit of violence. Pouring the Clorox into the bucket, I step into the bathroom and dilute it just enough to be able to breathe, then slosh the pungent mixture across the drying slick by the door. The bleach barely cuts the coagulated blood.

I bear down hard with the mop in the relatively clear place where Kali lay dead an hour ago. As the black-red mess swirls into scarlet spirals, the anesthetizing torrent of chemicals that must have insulated me up to now begins to slow, and the dark siblings of grief and guilt stir to wakefulness in my soul.

The mother of my only child is dead.

My complicity in her death grinds in my belly like slivers of glass. I probably know more about the man who killed her than anyone alive, now that Kali is dead. But I
dont know how he found his way here. I do know he could not and would not have done so had Miles and I not played at catching him. We were fools. Or worse. Somewhere, perhaps not far from here, Brahma is fleeing for his life. He might even be wounded, trying to stanch a river of blood that contains no natural clotting factor. But his fate seems strangely irrelevant now.

The mother of my only child is dead.

Erins blood yields slowly to the corrosive bleach. My throat works in vain against what feels like a lozenge of acid I cannot swallow, and glutinous tears burn my eyes. They are not healing tears, but tears of self-disgust. My part in drawing Brahma here is nothing beside my true offense. Somewhere in the dark chambers of my brain, the small and fearful animal that rules my subconscious has already computed times and distances, already realized that Erin did not have time to tell Patrick the truth about Holly before she died. If she had, he would have shown up here long before now. One day soon, Patrick and Drewe and Bob and Margaretsomeday even Holly herselfwill know that through stupidity I invited a depraved killer into our insular world. That knowledge will forever change their opinion of me, as it has my own. But they will never untie the final knot in the twisted skein of desire and consequence that led Erin to this house on this fateful night. The chilling thought that possessed me for an instant this afternoonthat only death could stop her from revealing our secrethas been fulfilled. And as I scrub fiercely at her blood, fighting to feel only honest grief at her passing, the pathetic rat voice of human instinct whispers in my heart:

Thank God theyll never know
.

The high ring announcing a video link from EROS headquarters is more than enough to get me off my knees after two hours of scrubbing up blood with steel wool and Clorox. Hunched and aching, I shuffle from the far wall of the office toward the EROS computer.

First there is only Nefertiti, revolving slowly on her black background. Then a window pops up on-screen, its top left corner flashing status numbers that precede the link. Pulling off the cramp-inducing dish gloves, I watch for Jan Krislovs face to appear. Instead, like a human version of the Cheshire cat, Miless grinning visage materializes from the black void.

You there, Harper?

I sit down, look into the dime-size camera lens mounted atop my monitor, and pull on the headset. No.

The Trojan Horse worked!

Miles

Im sitting here with a stack of stuff you wouldnt believe!

Miles.

Whats wrong? You look like your dog just got hit by a truck. Wheres my congratulations?

Erins dead.

His smile does not disappear instantly. It seems to peel away, like old paint in a hard wind. He is too intelligent to ask for pointless repetition or to express disbelief. I know that behind his dazed eyes, his brain is already modeling all possible sequences of events that could have produced the result I so baldly stated.

Tell me it was a car accident.

No.

Suicide.

Brahma got her, Miles.

He touches his forehead with one hand. Where?

Right here. My office.

Both his hands cover his eyes in an almost childish parody of grief. Then one hand comes away, toward the camera, like the pleading hand of a heretic about to be burnt at the stake.

Harper

How did he know to come here, Miles?

The millisecond he looks into his lap tells me the answer is very bad. How? I repeat.

Oh my god.

Miles!

Its my fault.

Its our fault, okay?

No, its
my
fucking fault!

The agony on his face stops me. What do you mean?

The switching station.

The telephone company switching station? What are you talking about?

He slowly shakes his head, the slow-speed video making his movements appear spastic. When I hacked the false identity for Erin, I did it just like I told you I would. DMV, Social Security, a few credit records. I made her name Cynthia Griffin.

And?

Before I could do any of that, I had to have a physical address. That meant hacking into the phone companys switching station to match a fake address with your phone number. Everything had to work off of that. See?

Yes.

But I was wrong about the security level at the phone company. It was taking hours to break in. I needed a code or a password from someone inside. I tried to social-engineer it, but I couldnt snow anybody. Then I got to thinking. Even if I succeeded in breaking in, Brahma might be able to cross-reference enough databases to figure out that the address was fake. You were ready to start up as Erin

You used my real address?

It was the only way to make the character bulletproof!

Bulletproof? You goddamn idiot!

I know, okay! Miless voice is high and shaking. Damn it, I thought wed know if he made any kind of move! From the typos. Thats why I kept asking you if he was making any.

The errors didnt matter! He just stopped communicating with me for the time it took him to fly down here. Just that stupid e-mail message about getting the JPEG picture of Erin! God, I should have tried to talk to him right then. Then Id have known he was moving!

Miles seems to be shaking, but I cant tell from the grainy picture whether its him or the link. Oh, God, he croaks. I killed her. Christ....

We
killed her, I correct him. You talked me into it, but Im the one who lured him here. And now Im scrubbing Erins blood off the walls.

He wipes his eyes again.

I am numb. The magnitude of our culpability in Erins death is impossible to face for long. Tell me about the Trojan Horse, Miles.

He nods distractedly and raises a sheaf of paper toward his camera lens.

Whats that?

The contents of Brahmas hard drive. The one he downloaded the Trojan Horse onto.

A remnant of cold reason revives somewhere in my brain. Does it tell you who he is?

No name. No Im Ted Bundy or anything like that. In a curiously childlike gesture, Miles wipes his nose on his sleeve. I got his EROS software serial number, but its registered under David Strobekker.

Damn.

But there are definite leads. Hes got to be working out of New York. He started out killing homeless women here. The first three victims were infected with HIV, so he stopped. That must be when he hit on the EROS idea. He killed Strobekker in Minneapolis for his EROS account

Where are you getting all this?

I think he used this computer primarily as an interface for EROS. Its mostly Windows-based applications. He
must have his main stuff on a UNIX workstation somewhere. Jesus, I cant believe this.
God

What else do you have? I ask, forcing my voice under control.

The explosive stuff is the WordPerfect files. He actually kept a record of most of the murders. Theyre like descriptive letters. Dear Father, We landed in New Orleans yesterday evening. A humid city, blah, blah. He shuffles pages. Dear Father, We landed in Michigan in the afternoon. Dear Father, We landed in Virginia Beach

Brahma told me his father died in India.

Miles shrugs. So he writes to his dead father. Its like
Psycho
maybe. The problem is that the only names mentioned in the letters are those of the victims, or this woman Kali. According to the letters, she did the actual killings. Although Brahma helped with the staging. The mutilations and stuff. Kali must be that girl he picked up in India. The Thuggee girl.

Shes dead too.

She is? How do you know?

Erin killed her. Right here in my office. Ran her through the stomach with the sword off my wall.

Miles is thunderstruck.

Come on, there must be something in the letters we can use.

Drewe was right about the pineal transplant thing, he says. Brahma definitely kidnapped Peter Levy, the man the FBI got off the DonorNet list. Know why?

Come on, Miles.

Levy was a perfect tissue match with Brahma.

Jesus. You mean... you think he could already have found a way to have this transplant done to himself?

No. I think Levys on permanent standby. For when the procedures perfected. Ill bet when Brahma turned up an exact match for himself, he decided he wasnt going to take any chances that the guy would get run over by a truck. I guarantee you Levy is being held prisoner somewhere right now.

Good God.

The DonorNet womans dead, though. The navy chick
from Virginia Beach. She died on the operating table. Rosalind May did too. Heart attack. For some reason Brahma was going to open her chestdont ask me whyand he actually told her about it. The letter said he was trying to make it
easier
on her. She died of plain terror. Its pretty sick stuff. But theres one thing that doesnt add up in it all.

What?

Why Brahma was fooling with Erin. I mean with
you
.

What do you mean?

I dont think he saw you as a potential donor. So why was he wasting time with you?

Im listening.

Everything was going fine for him until Karin Wheats death. She was meant to be the first live recipient. I think he thought she might voluntarily allow him to perform the transplant. Of course, when he and Kali showed up at her mansion, she freaked, and they had to kill her. After that he went to his backup plan, which was straight kidnapping. Rosalind May. And he got the navy girl easily enough, the donor. But just before the big operation, his help got greedy on him. He was using unlicensed Indian doctors as assistants, probably recruited by Kali. They tried to extort more money, and Kali killed one of them.

Thats a lead right there! The FBI can start checking Indian physicians whove been turned down for U.S. medical licenses. They can concentrate on New York.

Listen to me, Harper. That same night, May died on the operating table. The next day the FBI breached his perimeter in Dallas. Notice a pattern here?

Brahmas having big problems.

Exactly. But does he lie low and regroup? No. He decides to teach the FBI a lesson. He plays Lenzs little game, then kills Lenzs wife. Meanwhile, hes playing kissy-kissy with you too.

Maybe I was meant to be the next donor.

For who? Who would the recipient have been?

Kali, maybe?

This stops Miles. I hadnt thought of that. But I dont
think so. Too early. Shed want to know the procedure worked before she risked it.

So why was he talking to me?

Brahma wants immortality, Harper. Physical immortality. Listen to this: Soon I shall stand alone at the pinnacle of the species, the only man with the courage to reach into the fountain. Soon I shall spit in the face of God.

The fountain of youth?

Hell yes. He even talks about Ponce de Leon. Brahmas fountain is the pineal transplant. Except just as he gets close, fate starts working against him. And the worse it gets, the more he tells you about himself. He gives you his whole life story, something we know hes never done before. Why?

Do you know?

Theres another kind of immortality, Harper.

Just tell me, damn it!

Kids.

The word detonates in my subconscious like a bomb. Even with the jerky video image, I can see the excitement on Miless face.

In the transcripts you faxed, Brahma says he sterilized Kali, remember?

Yes. He said he couldnt have children by her, so she allowed him to sterilize her.

If he couldnt have children by her, he wouldnt
need
to sterilize her. I think he
wouldnt
have children by her.

Because she was Indian, I say distantly. Because she had dark skin.

Exactly! All those early questions about skin color! All his life, Brahmas been looking for someone like his mother for a mate.

But my Erin wasnt that much like Catherine.

Not so much physically, maybe. Although you did change her in that direction a little. Good instinct.

Yeah, obviously.

No, listen, Harper. The answer lies in the story you were telling him.
Thats
where Erin was like his mother, and thats what attracted him.

What do you mean?

You blacked out most of what you told Brahma, Miles says, looking straight into the camera, but now isnt the time to be shy. It was all stuff about you and Erin, right? The real Erin.

I hesitate only a moment. Yes.

The big thing in Brahmas past is incest. Hes a child of incest; he always longed for the sister he never had; Kali was a poor substitute. Right?

Uh-huh.

I started thinking about Erin. And you. Your separate pasts, when things might have happened between you. And I realized that your marriage dates were pretty close together.

Miles

So I called the Methodist Church down in Rain and found out exactly when Erin and Patrick were married. Then I checked the Social Security computer and got a birth date on Holly Graham

You son of a bitch!

Im sorry, Harper. I had to know. And thats the answer. Brahma became obsessed with Erin because she had this semi-incestuous angle to her past. And because you played her so convincingly. Erin had a child by her sisters husband. She ignored the rules for the sake of love, just like Catherine. Shes a combination of Brahmas mother and the sister he never had. Or at least thats what Brahma started to think under the stress of his other problems.

Were done talking, Miles.

Wait! Cant you see Im only doing this to stop this motherfucker?

I dont think anybody can stop him.

I can. The question is, what will Brahma do
now
? When he got to your place and found hed been fooled, he must have flipped out. But why kill Erin? She was the girl in the JPEG, after all. Why not kidnap her? Did he take her pineal gland?

No. But he took something. Probably her ovaries.

Miless mouth falls open.

She had a surgical incision down there.

Christ. You see? With his pineal work going down the
tubes, Brahma fixated on extending his gene line through children. Its that simple. Wait... Erin killed Kali, you said. That means Erin fought like a banshee, right?

I close my eyes, remembering Kalis mutilated corpse.

Brahma
had
to kill Erin, Miles concludes. She left him no choice. Just like Karin Wheat. So he tried to salvage what he could. He probably carries some special transport container for the pineals. He just loaded up her ovaries instead.