Ten Plagues (29 page)

Keren gave him a frantic shake of her head. Of course, it was too late.

There was an extended silence on the phone. Finally, when Caldwell spoke, it wasn’t with his usual cultured tone. His voice had the snarl of an angry beast. “So you finally figured it out, did you? I suppose it was inevitable. But you proved to be so stupid before, I really doubted if you’d ever identify me.

“There you were, ranting and raving about my careless driving.” Caldwell’s voice lightened as he reminisced. “What a pathetic excuse you were for a policeman.”

A laugh erupted from the phone so shrill Keren jerked the phone away from her ear.

“The truth is, I planned for your wife and child to die months before I finally killed them. I thought of every detail. I savored watching them and learning about them. Your wife was very careless about closing her curtains, you know. You could train her to be more modest, if she were still alive. I even arranged for you to be living away from home. I planted the evidence your wife found that made her throw you out of the house. You got angry when she accused you of being unfaithful, but you never asked yourself where she got that idea. I watched the two of you fight. A few times I watched … when you
didn’t
fight.”

Paul’s eyes were neutral, cool. He didn’t react to this sick invasion of privacy.

“I’m surprised you could stand to touch her, Reverend,” Caldwell went on. “Your wife was not a nice woman. She deserved everything that happened to her. I created the whole thing … the car trouble, the battery failing on her cell phone. I slipped in behind her at the dance recital, got her purse from under her folding chair, took her battery out, and returned everything. No one saw me in the dark auditorium. I even took pains to keep you away from that school program, so you wouldn’t be there to help. Having her husband be a policeman made it all the sweeter. Even then, I was controlling you like a god.”

“Why them?” Paul sounded angry now, but it was a cold kind of anger, all the more frightening for the depth and control he exerted over it. “Why kill my wife and daughter?”

“Your wife worked at the art gallery where I wanted to display my work. She humiliated me, when she should have been kissing my feet for doing her the honor of choosing her.”

“You mean she thought your artwork was lousy, and you killed her for it,” Paul taunted.

“Your wife was the first one. I saw the evil in her. The evil needed to be destroyed so my art could be let go into the world.”

“And my daughter? What had she done?”

“Your daughter needed to die so your wife would understand what she’d done. I enjoyed making her witness her daughter’s death. Your wife was still alive after I hit her the first time. So I went back and made sure she was dead. Your wife deserved to die, and your daughter would have been another one just like her.”

“And did your mother stand by and watch you be hurt, Francis?”

“She only wanted me to be free. She wanted what was best for me,” Caldwell raged.

“Were you bad, Francis?” Paul jeered.

“Yes, I was bad,” Caldwell seethed. “But my father helped me learn discipline and control. And my mother understood and supported me in my art.”

“If you turned yourself in, it would go easier for you.”

“Easier?” Caldwell laughed. “How much easier? Life in prison instead of a lethal injection? That’s not a very tempting offer.”

“There’s more than prison for you if you come in, Francis. There’s help. You need help.” Paul fell silent.

There was an extended pause, then Caldwell returned to the chanting voice he’d used at first. “Did you enjoy finding you had company when you got home last night, my pretty Keren?”

Keren glanced up at Paul, then the two of them scanned the area in all directions.

“Yes, I know you’re listening. And I know all about you carrying on with the reverend. You don’t think that reporter came up with the idea on his own, do you? You’re a part of this now, just like the good reverend is. That’s why I sent you your own little gift. If you set out to catch me, then you have to accept that you’ve become part of what is between me and the reverend.”

Anger flushed Paul’s face. Keren glanced at her watch and decided to talk to Caldwell to keep him on the phone.

Before she could speak, Caldwell said, “I wonder who will get my next present. There are so many who are worthy to be honored. I’ve already got her, you know. But I’m not sure what door you carve your message on when a woman is homeless. I guess I’ll just carve it in her back.”

“Francis, you can’t do this. Let me help you,” Paul said fiercely.

“I didn’t really choose her, Reverend. You did, that first day. I warned you not to talk to anyone on your way to the building.”

“I didn’t talk to anyone,” Paul insisted.

Then Keren heard screaming through the phone line and Caldwell’s high-pitched laughter.

“Pastor P, help me!”

Paul’s eyes flared in recognition. “I ran into her, knocked her shopping cart over. She doesn’t know anything about this.”

The phone clicked off.

Paul pressed the phone against his forehead. “He’s got Wilma.”

Keren called Higgins to report Wilma’s kidnapping. Higgins cut her off before she could tell him.

“We got a location on him,” the FBI agent said exuberantly. “We’re moving on the place now!”

“The call gives you probable cause,” Keren said.

“We don’t need to wait for any paperwork. We can kick the door in.” Higgins rattled off the address.

“We’re already in the parking garage.” Keren headed for her car at a fast clip.

Paul was right with her. He shoved her toward the passenger side. “I’ll drive, you talk.”

Keren didn’t like the take-charge attitude, but they didn’t have time to haggle. She said to Higgins, “We’re on our way.”

“You’ll be ahead of us by a couple of minutes.” Keren could hear Higgins breathing hard. Even now he was charging toward his car. Paul started hers and squealed the tires as he backed out of the space. He was roaring for the exit before she got her seat belt fastened.

“We’re going in quiet, Collins,” Higgins shouted into the phone. “I’m sending the SWAT team so we can secure the entire building. I don’t want him to have any warning. Don’t you two go in alone.”

“We won’t. We’re going to do this right.” Keren clicked the phone.

“He’s been right across the street from the mission?” Paul asked in shock. “No wonder he knew everything about me.” Paul went in quiet, but he went in fast.

“He’s probably been studying you for weeks.” Keren got another call from Higgins and learned more.

“Longer if he knows about Juanita and LaToya. Why didn’t we search those buildings?” Paul clutched the steering wheel as he skidded around a corner.

“It’s impossible.” Keren twisted her hair and refastened her barrette to hold some of the escaping tendrils. “The mission is surrounded by buildings—thousands of apartments. We’d spend months going door-to-door.”

“He probably picked all ten girls before he hit Melody Fredericks by accident.”

“Then he figured out a new way to torment you.” Keren heard about ten thousand miles’ worth of tread being burned off her tires and only wished Paul would drive faster. “It wasn’t necessary to kill your friends, which was getting harder with all the warnings we’ve been putting out. There were other ways to make it personal.”

“What else did Higgins tell you? Does he have more information on the guy?”

“They ran the building occupants as soon as they got an address. One person rents the whole top floor.”

“Name?” Paul looked away from the traffic as he ran a stale yellow light. Horns honked but he floored it and raced on.

“He didn’t have that yet. Even in a run-down tenement, how can anyone afford to rent a whole floor?”

“He had money,” Paul remembered. “We checked his bank accounts that he’d emptied.”

“This is close enough.” Keren unhooked her seat belt before they came to a complete stop, prepared to hog-tie Paul to keep him from going in before SWAT arrived.

“He’s hurting her. Right now, he’s in there torturing Wilma.” Paul pulled up well away from the building and stared at it as if he could bore a hole in the wall with his eyes and see where Wilma was.

Keren wondered how long she could keep him in the car. She wondered how long she could keep herself in the car.

“So a rich man lives on the fifth floor of that wreck of a building,” Keren said, craning her neck to see to the top. “He’s got a clear view of two sides of the mission, and it’s tall enough he can see most of what’s going on, on the other sides.”

“And with a telescope set up in the right place, he could watch most of what he’s sent me to do. He saw me plow into Wilma that first morning he contacted me. Wilma.” Paul fell silent.

“Is she a friend?” Keren laid her hand on Paul’s shoulder.

Paul shrugged. He rested his elbow on the open window and ran his hand over his face. “Kind of. I tried to be a friend. She had … has … mental problems, and she solves them by guzzling a bottle or two of mouthwash every day.”

“Mouthwash? She drinks Listerine?”

“Not Listerine. It costs too much. She buys generic. You can get a two-quart bottle for a dollar. It’s about
75
percent alcohol. They all drink that or plain-label cough syrup. Some even drink rubbing alcohol. It’ll all give you a buzz. They buy it at a discount store a couple of blocks over. I asked the store manager to quit stocking it, but he refused. He said they’d just walk until they found it. And I know he’s right.”

“So Wilma is really one of the hard-core homeless,” Keren said thoughtfully. “Not the type he’s been going after at all.”

“Do you think we could get some tracking devices and put them on some of the homeless people without their knowledge?” His knee started bouncing up and down. Keren could see his patience running out. “We could see if Caldwell grabs them and get to them before he hurts them.”

“We’re going to get him, Paul. We won’t have to track anyone.”

Paul grabbed for the door handle.

Keren clutched his collar.

Higgins pulled up beside them and rolled down his driver’s-side window. “I’ve got cars in place on all four sides of the building. We’ll secure the exits, double-check the basement for one of his bombs, then go in.”

A radio crackled in Higgins’s car. He lifted the handset and talked quietly; then he hung it up and said, “SWAT’s here. We’ve got to wait for the all clear before we can go in.”

A parade of black-clothed, heavily-armed SWAT team members stormed the building.

Keren thought she’d explode from the maddening wait. Finally Higgins got the go-ahead.

Higgins talked rapidly on his radio. “SWAT reported that the basement was clear of explosives. Let’s go.” Higgins reached the door, swung it open, and went in ahead of a dozen other men. Paul and Keren were left for last.

“I should have asked Higgins for a gun,” Paul said through his clenched teeth.

“Get a grip.” Keren didn’t like bringing up the rear either. But this was Higgins’s show. “He’d never give you one. And you don’t need it.”

“He might have.” Paul glanced at Keren. His eyes were as cold as his voice. “I can be pretty persuasive.”

They ran quickly and quietly up the five flights of stairs. The whole building was a slum. More apartments empty than lived in. Graffiti on the walls, broken light fixtures, and shattered glass littering the hallways. They got to Caldwell’s floor and it was no better, except the doors were all hung and closed.

Higgins went up to the first one and tried it. He whispered, “Locked.”

He turned to the dozen men who had accompanied him. “I want every door kicked open at the same time. Don’t go charging in without backup.”

“Ready?” There were five doors on both sides of the hallway. Two men stood at each door. Keren and Paul stood back, out of the way, near the door Higgins had chosen.

“Go!” Higgins’s voice exploded. Ten doors crashed open.

“FBI,” Higgins shouted. The same shout echoed down the hall. Higgins disappeared. Keren and Paul went in right behind him.

“This is it,” Paul said to Keren. “We’ve got him.”

T
hey missed him.

Every room was wide open. There was no place to hide. There was no killer.

“He was here,” Higgins raged. He touched a coffee cup sitting on a counter. “It’s still warm. He can’t have been gone long.” He called into the hall, “Fan out. We’ve got the exits blocked. Check every apartment in this building.”

But Paul knew it was a waste of time. They all did. One clue said it all. A wooden sign, set neatly beside a shiny new telephone, that said, W
ELCOME
, R
EVEREND
.