Strip Search (40 page)

She had no answers. She could not fathom the inscrutable mind of God. But somewhere, just as something in one part of her brain was snapping, another part was stitching something together, something new and…workable. A way to ask her questions, to force God to answer. To let Him know what she thought of Him and His strange and mysterious ways. Math and magic, that was the answer. Calculus and the Kabbalah.

She would need a plan, a way to get His divine attention, to turn His own Holy Word against Him. And she would need a pawn, but by now, turning the minds of little men was child’s play to her. Esther would take His bloody image apart piece by piece, destroy the Sefirot limb by limb, find her way from darkness to light by exposing the darkness
in
the light, the pathetic fallibility of God Himself. She would begin her work at once—calculate her plans and set them in motion.

And then, when she did, may God have mercy on His own goddamn soul.

“IF YOU’RE going to get inside her head,” I explained to the more than twenty federal officers crammed into the briefing room, “and you have to, if you’re going to have any chance of catching her, then you have to understand what motivates her.”

“Rage?” suggested one of the younger men in the front row, an agent Gilpin.

“Rage, certainly, but rage fueled by what?” The background checks on Esther Goldstein had come in, and they confirmed most of what I had already hypothesized and woven into my revised psychological profile.

“Frustration. Loss of the child she worked so hard to conceive.”

“Certainly the child is a factor. But she doesn’t know she’s going to lose the child. There’s only one thing she knows for certain.”

“She won’t be around to raise her child,” agent Gilpin said quietly.

“Exactly so. All her life she’s been surrounded by bad parents, at least in her mind. She was determined to be better, to be better than any of them. And now she’s being cheated out of the chance. By God.”

“Is that why she’s using all the religious motifs?” one of the senior officers, agent Ringold, asked. “Is this her way of…filing an appeal? With God?”

“I can’t say for certain,” I acknowledged. “But I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s interested in an appeal. I think she knows it’s hopeless. But all this imagery and philosophy and mathematics she has absorbed from the Kabbalah, all of it relates to the relationship between God and man. That we are made in His image. That we are all potentially in the process of becoming God.”

“So she wants to be God. A deity of equal status. So she could overrule His decision.”

“That too seems impossible, even in her delusional narcissistic state. I think she knows she’s doomed, that she’ll never have a chance to raise her child, at least not on this earthly plane.”

“Then what? What does she want from Him? A miracle?”

I shook my head slowly. “Not a miracle. An accounting. She’s not buying into all that C.S. Lewis misery-helps-us-appreciate-God’s-mercy crap. Don’t mean to offend anyone, but in Esther’s mind, God is not only a son of a bitch—He’s a mean son of a bitch. He’s the Old Testament God, raining down death and destruction on those who don’t deserve it, torturing the innocent, justifying it all in terms of some incomprehensible plan. And that’s not good enough for Esther. She wants to deconstruct God’s image while simultaneously taking down as many bad parents as possible, and in so doing, to make God answer for what He has done.”

“That’s…insane.”

I arched an eyebrow. “And this surprises you?”

There was another voice from the back of the room. “Ms. Pulaski, we appreciate the work you’ve done on this case—and other cases as well. But we’ve all read your preliminary profile on this case and, well, to be blunt, you were dead wrong. You didn’t even have the killer’s gender correct.”

“I’ll be the first to admit I’ve made some boneheaded moves on this one,” I said. Best defense is a good offense, right? “We had eyewitness accounts identifying the killer as male and I allowed them to influence me, even though there were contradictory indications: male/female, organized/disorganized, narcissistic/sympathetic. What I didn’t realize—but should’ve—was that there were two people involved, one being controlled by the other. But there’s no point dwelling on past mistakes. I’ve logged over twenty hours in the interrogation room with Tucker, in addition to all the other research and detective work I’ve done, and I’m here to tell you—I’ve got it right this time. So if you really want to catch this killer, memorize my report and treat it like your own personal Kabbalah.” I closed my folder. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a press conference.”

DARCY MET ME just outside the conference room.

“They found the body!”

Well, that was good to know. It must’ve been a more pleasant discovery than the part Esther left behind in Stevens’s conference room. “Where was it?”

“Barely a mile away! And did you know this? Did you know that it was behind an apartment building! People went back and forth all the time, but it still took a long time before someone found it.”

I wondered how she managed to get the body there without being caught. Late at night, probably. Wrapped in a rug or some such. A smart woman like Esther wouldn’t have any trouble figuring out a way. “Seems like every body comes a little closer to headquarters. Any chance she’s…I don’t know. Slowly bringing her dirty deeds into our face? Teasing us or something?”

Darcy tilted his head slightly to one side. “Do you think that maybe…that maybe…there is some…pattern to the way the Math Lady gets rid of the bodies?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. There’s been a pattern to everything else. Do you see any connections?”

He didn’t answer. I’d seen that look before. He was off in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land and if I had any brains, I wouldn’t disturb him.

“You keep thinking, Darce. I’ve got to do this miserable press conference.”

He snapped out of it. “Can I go with you?”

“To the press conference? I don’t know, Darcy—your father never wanted you involved in this case, much less at a press conference.”

“But you have to take me!”

“I do? Why?”

“Because—Because—” He raised his hands up and ran them back and forth through his hair. “Because I am your math consultant.”

“I don’t think the press will be asking any math questions.”

“Then—because I am your good luck charm!”

“You are?”

“Of course I am. Do you think that I am? Do you believe in luck?”

“I think this is not the best time to get off on philosophical tangents. I have to—”

“And then after the press thing, we can go for custard.”

I gave him a long look. “Darcy…we have a very tight deadline. Assuming she keeps to her pattern—the Math Lady is going to strike again today.”

Against all odds, Darcy’s expression brightened. “Then I will just have to stay with you until then.”

IT WAS THE MOST COMPLEX ALGORITHM she had ever devised, the most demanding computer program she had ever invented. And for what purpose? No one could possibly decipher this, at least not until it was far too late. So why bother?

Because she had no choice. The Kabbalah was all about numbers, yes, but also about fairness, justice. It dictated that all persons should have their opportunity to crawl out of the darkness into the light, to find their own path to becoming God. To be challenged in their own environments. That’s why the amputations were always performed in the chosen one’s workplace. That’s why an escape hatch—however remote—had to be included in her final act of destruction. That’s why, even though they did not deserve it, she would give them a chance. However slight.

Esther was still a little shaky after all she had been forced to do—the branding, the killing, the transportation of the body. She was glad she hadn’t had to do it the other times as well. Her final stroke would be much larger, of course, but in its own way, less personal. Her physical presence was not required—just as well, given how weak she felt. The branding, the dismemberment, all that had become unnecessary. She was making a larger statement now, one that would symbolize a strike against all mankind.

When she was finished, she put the electronic detonator beside the blue folder containing her mathematical work, both representative of a lifetime of effort in her two chosen fields of endeavor. If all went well, these two objects would represent her legacy to her daughter, the culmination of a lifetime’s work, a hard lifetime, but one to which she had never succumbed, never given in.

Esther poured herself a drink—nonalcoholic, because of the baby—and turned on the television. She had heard there was going to be a conference on what the press were now calling the “Math Slayings.” Rumor had it they were expecting another murder soon. But why? Was it possible they had discovered the prime number pattern? Much of their mathematical work had surprised and impressed her, including the discovery of the mathematical algorithmic scheme that allowed the Kabbalistic forces to determine who the victims for each aspect of the Sefirot would be. This was math of the highest order, but they had cracked it, and it had allowed them to capture Tucker, if not to save their own colleague. How was it done?

She was surprised to see Susan Pulaski leading the press conference. Given how severely—and repeatedly—Pulaski had blundered in this case, Esther was surprised to find her still employed at all, much less used in such a public capacity. Just as well, though. There was no chance of her cracking the codes Esther had devised.

She turned up the volume so she could hear what the pathetic woman had to say.

“…but the most important thing is that we not start a panic. Yes, we have a killer in our midst, but if we’re all careful, we can remain safe. She has never attacked anyone who is not a native of this city and there is no reason to believe that she will start now. On the other hand, if you have ever had any dealings with the Department of Human Services, or for any other reason might fall under this woman’s twisted notion of what constitutes a bad parent, you need to take precautions. Stay home. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t be alone, especially in your place of work. We’ll be broadcasting the most recent pictures of her that we’ve been able to find, but this woman is smart enough to alter her appearance.”

Wait a minute—did that Pulaski woman use the word “twisted”? Was it twisted to hold parents accountable for their wrongdoing? To punish those who committed atrocities on their young, who took advantage of them, abused them? Why would they even want to stop her? Why not let her take out the whole sorry lot of them?

Pulaski was fielding questions now, as best she was able when she knew basically nothing. A handsome reporter named Jonathan Wooley with a brown and gray goatee was grilling her. “Why hasn’t the LVPD captured her? Why did the federal government have to send in assistance? What are the taxpayers getting for their money?”

“I assure you the LVPD has been giving this case its top priority, sir.” An edge crept into Pulaski’s voice, discernible and probably calculated. “If I may remind you, one of our own became the killer’s fifth victim. A personal friend of mine.” Pulaski was silent for a moment. “We are doing everything within our power. And we have captured the man who committed most of the murders.”

“But not the mastermind of the whole operation.”

Another significant pause. “No. But we will. Please bear in mind that, despite her delusional state, Dr. Esther Goldstein is intelligent and she has planned her crimes well in advance, very carefully. Nonetheless, we will catch her. And as for the involvement of the federal government, that’s standard procedure in cases involving multiple murders. In no sense does it constitute an indictment of the LVPD. We’ve worked together before and we will no doubt—”

Esther stopped listening. Delusional state? Did that cheap harlot third-rate psychologist—a woman who didn’t even have her
doctorate
!—actually have the audacity to say Esther was in a delusional state? What was wrong with these people? They should be applauding her efforts. She was stamping out the parents that destroyed children’s lives. Was that delusional? Would Susan Pulaski find it so delusional if she had been raped by her father, her foster parents, if the courts had never listened to her, just sent her back again and again and again? Would she still—

Something on the television screen caught her eye. A young man was standing behind Susan, staring at the floor.

It was the same kid she had brought with her when she came to the university—what was his name? David? Dwayne? No—Darcy. Darcy O’Bannon. The chief of police’s son. He was the numbers whiz, the one who whipped through the continuing fractions most of her graduate students couldn’t handle correctly, even though he’d never had any experience or training in the field. That was the answer! That must be how they were able to follow her clues, to solve the equations, to understand the secrets of the Kabbalah that guided her actions. That idiot savant was guiding their pathetic efforts to catch her.

If the final piece of the Sefirot were to be destroyed as planned, if the final piece of this majestic plan were to work, Darcy O’Bannon would have to be eliminated.

She turned off the television and logged onto the Internet. She hated to add a new factor to the plan this late in the game, with as little time left. But given all that was at stake, it would be worth the effort.

“WHERE’S DARCY?” I asked, when I didn’t see him outside the conference room.

“Who cares?” Granger replied, with his usual touching concern. “Can’t you do anything without that kid?”

“I don’t want to consult with him. I want to know where he is.” This was odd. Just before the press conference, he’d been threatening to stick with me until we caught Esther. I knew he’d come into the press conference room. So where was he now?

“Last I saw him,” Granger said, “you were about halfway through the conference.” He was tight-lipped, downright sullen. Probably still sulking because O’Bannon chose me to do the press conference instead of him.